Brett Kavanaugh Calls Birth Control An 'Abortion-Inducing Drug'

Brett Kavanaugh’s thoughts on birth control are terrifyingly ignorant

During yesterday’s Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, we learned exactly how dangerous this man is when it comes to women’s reproductive rights.

During questioning by Sen. Ted Cruz, Kavanaugh appeared to refer to birth control as “abortion-inducing drugs,” which is nothing short of completely infuriating — and terrifying.

Cruz asked about Kavanaugh’s 2015 dissent in the Priests for Life v. HHS case. Kavanaugh sided with Priests For Life, a religious organization that didn’t want to give their employees insurance coverage for birth control. Much like the 2014 Hobby Lobby case, the group was arguing that being forced to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees was an infringement on their religious freedom.

“The question was first, was this a substantial burden on their religious exercise? And it seemed to me, quite clearly, it was,” Kavanaugh said. “They said filling out the form would make them complicit in the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objected to.”

Naturally, the group is thrilled with Kavanaugh’s nomination. Father Frank Pavone, director of Priests For Life, released a statement referring to the judge’s dissent in his organization’s favor. “We at Priests for Life have personal experience of Judge Kavanaugh’s approach to religious freedom, because he sided with us when we had to defend our religious freedom in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals,” he said.

Bottom line, religious freedom means more to him than a woman’s right to birth control access.

It’s easy to see why women’s rights activists are vehemently against his confirmation, as Planned Parenthood Action Fund executive vice president Dawn Laguens tells HuffPost, “Kavanaugh referred to birth control ― something more than 95 percent of women use in their lifetime ― as an ‘abortion-inducing drug,’ which is not just flat-out wrong, but is anti-woman, anti-science propaganda. Women have every reason to believe their health and their lives are at stake.”

Because hello, Brett — do you even science, bro? Birth control doesn’t induce an abortion, it stops an egg and sperm from ever meeting. Period. That’s literally it. When a woman takes birth control, she’s merely preventing pregnancy, which is actually proven to reduce the total number of actual abortions in the first place. And as Laguens points out, birth control does far more than prevent pregnancy for so many women.

“Let me break it down for you, Brett,” she says. “Birth control is basic health care. Birth control allows women to plan their futures, participate in the economy, and ― for some women with health issues like endometriosis ― allows them to get through the day.”

A woman’s access to birth control should never be in question because of another group’s — or man’s — religious beliefs. Confirming Brett Kavanaugh to a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the land is a threat to women everywhere. We should all be afraid for the future of women’s rights if these decisions are partly in his hands.