During the #KavanaughHearings, Kavanaugh referenced his dissent in a case on the contraception coverage requirement by employers for employees' healthcare. In his testimony, he referred to contraception as "abortion-inducing drugs". This is not medically accurate and is a tactic.
Medically and scientifically, pregnancy begins at implantation. Most contraception works by blocking an egg release or blocking or disabling sperm; sometimes they work to block implantation of a fertilized egg. No contraception works after implantation or causes an abortion.
Medication abortions, or surgical abortions, remove an existing pregnancy. Contraception works before a patient is pregnant. Contraception, Plan B, and IUDs do not cause abortions. There is a huge misinformation campaign to conflate how these things work to undermine access.
We've seen anti-abortion advocates make up terms like "non-abortive contraception" to insinuate that there is "abortive contraception". Medically, it's nonsense because contraception cannot cause an abortion. These aren't scientific or medical terms.
Anti-abortion and anti-birth control advocates have been pushing this for years to gut the contraception benefit in the Affordable Care Act.
A Washington Post op-ed got this very wrong:
The New York Times has gotten this wrong:
A Washington Post op-ed got this very wrong:
The New York Times has gotten this wrong:
If anti-abortion advocates can redefine what is a pregnancy, and declare contraception and abortion to be the same, they'll be able to further restrict access. They're pushing the wildly unpopular "personhood amendments" which would ban abortion & IVF. rewire.news/article/2017/0…
This is a huge signal that Judge Kavanaugh would not only continue to restrict access to abortion, but also contraception, particularly IUDs and Emergency Contraception first. This is bad.
These comments show Kavanaugh is not invested in using evidence-based science to decide his rulings, and uninterested in understanding how the reproductive system, contraception, or abortion even works. It seems he is interested in codifying misinformation into SCOTUS decisions.
We already have quite a bit of medical misinformation about abortion codified into law because lawmakers are governing based on personal opinion and not evidence-based science. This is not how we should practice medicine and regulate public health issues.
Currently, several states legally force clinicians to tell patients medically inaccurate statements about abortion. broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/…
Some require clinicians to tell patients about so-called "abortion reversal", an unmonitored medical experiment. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Some require clinicians to tell patients about so-called "abortion reversal", an unmonitored medical experiment. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Refusing to use evidence-based science when discussing medical procedures is not only irrational, but dangerous. Judge Kavanaugh likes to talk about precedent, but this is unprecedented. This should alarm everyone.
Willfully ignoring evidence-based research does not only harm access to abortion, but everything in our world. We've already seen politicians willfully ignore evidence-based research on the environment, shifting how laws are written and harming the people they should protect
This is really dangerous. Please call BOTH of your senators. Urge them to vote to protect abortion & contraception access, and evidence-based science. We need a Supreme Court that will examine cases based on facts and evidence, not personal opinion. Call: (202) 224-3121
