Democrats’ contraception bill failed a key procedural vote on Wednesday as Republicans slammed the broad proposal over parental rights and religious liberty implications.
The Senate voted 51-39 against moving forward with the “Right to Contraception Act.”
The bill needed to garner 60 votes in order to move forward in the upper chamber.
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Ahead of the cloture vote, a majority of Republican senators had already signed onto a statement led by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., attacking the measure as an attempt to “score cheap political points.”
“Today every Senator must take a stand: if you agree all Americans deserve access to contraception, then vote yes on the Right to Contraception Act,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in floor remarks prior to the vote.
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But Republicans claimed that it wasn’t quite that simple.
Per the group of GOP lawmakers, the bill “infringes on the parental rights and religious liberties of some Americans and lets the federal government force religious institutions and schools, even public elementary schools, to offer contraception like condoms to little kids.”
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Top Pro-Life group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America described the measure as “misleading” in a press release, noting the effect its provisions would have on the funding Planned Parenthood is eligible to receive and that which Pro-Life pregnancy centers are allowed.
“It’s ‘show-vote’ season in the Senate,” Senate Pro-Life caucus Chair Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., said on Wednesday.
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“This is another example of Democrats bringing forward deeply deceptive legislation to make political points and try to offer cover to vulnerable Democrats,” she said.
However, “The devil is in the details,” the senator explained. “This bill isn’t about access to contraception. It’s about pouring more taxpayer dollars to abortion purveyors like Planned Parenthood, while further trampling religious freedoms and parental rights.”
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