To the Editor:
Senator Scott is again trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Senator Scott voted against Access to Contraceptive Act stating (1) it threatens religious freedoms and (2) ‘there is no threat to access contraception.’ He misrepresents or may I say lies. There is nothing in the text of the Act that undermines religious liberty-period. And, after the Dobbs decision, many states enacted anti-abortion laws which also could ban certain types of contraception. Other state legislators have already discussed or pushed legislation to restrict contraception like IUDs and emergency birth control pills. Virginia’s and Nevada’s governors vetoed legislation that would have protected the right to contraception. Further, Justice Thomas in his concurring opinion in Dobbs declared that the Court should ‘eliminate’ the legal doctrine behind the constitutional right to privacy and ‘reconsider all of this Court’s precedents on the right to privacy, including Griswold (constitutional right of marital privacy against state restrictions on contraception), Lawrence (intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by the constitution) and Obergefell (protecting same sex marriage). Finally, the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the Mifepristone birth control pill was decided on procedural grounds only. The majority opinion written by Justice Kavanaugh practically invited other challenges to the pill. The attacks on the right to use contraception will continue, despite what Rick Scott says.
Dorothy Stephens Duncan
Village of St. Charles