Jeanne Shaheen: “I am here today with the same concern that we heard from my colleagues--that this country is failing women in New…”

“I am here today with the same concern that we heard from my colleagues--that this country is failing women in New Hampshire and across the country when it comes to protecting our fundamental freedoms--fundamental freedoms like the right to contraception, which we thought was safe just a few short years ago. From the beginning, the right to full access to contraception was hard fought. Since that right was first recognized by the Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut nearly 60 years ago to the Affordable Care Act's expansion of contraceptive coverage in 2010 requiring insurance companies to pay for it, there have been incremental yet vital steps forward for women to determine our own reproductive futures. It put us on a path to making sure our daughters and granddaughters had more fundamental rights, not fewer. But as with so many things, this progress has been met with resistance. In the year since the Affordable Care Act, attacks on contraception have increased at both the State and Federal levels. Like many Americans--like those of us here today--I was very alarmed when Justice Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion in the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling that the Court should ``reconsider'' its ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut--should reconsider women's rights to access to contraception. That is my editorial analysis of what Justice Thomas was saying.…”