Slotkin works to protect access to contraception for service members and military families
The Michigan Democrat is co-sponsoring a bill to guarantee access to reproductive health care and family planning for U.S. armed service members and their families.
Michigan Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin has signed on as an original co-sponsor of a bill to guarantee access to contraception for members of the U.S. military and their families. In her three terms in Congress, Slotkin has consistently worked to protect reproductive rights for all Americans.
Slotkin is the Democratic nominee in the November election to fill the open U.S. Senate seat of retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Her Republican opponent, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, has backed abortion bans, fetal personhood legislation, and efforts to prohibit medication abortion.
The Access to Contraception for Servicemembers and Dependents Act, reintroduced in the House on Sept. 27 by Democratic Rep. Veronica Esobar of Texas, would ensure that service members and their families enrolled in the U.S. Department of Defense’s Tricare insurance program have access to contraception without cost sharing, create a family planning education program for military families, and guarantee that sexual assault survivors can obtain emergency contraception at military treatment facilities. Slotkin co-sponsored the same legislation in the last Congress, where it stalled in committee.
“In the past, issues like contraception for service members rarely came up in Congress, but everything changed when Roe was overturned,” Slotkin told the Michigan Independent in an emailed statement. “Now, it’s imperative that we take steps to protect the reproductive health of our women in uniform. This legislation would ensure that service women and military families have access to contraception and family planning, because it’s essential that they receive the health care they have earned.”
Slotkin is also a co-sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would restore the right to an abortion previously protected under Roe v. Wade, and the Right to Contraception Act.
“What people don’t understand is that overturning Roe v. Wade was the 50-year goal of the Republican side, but that’s what they were doing through the front door. There’s a ton of things going on through the back door as well,” she told the Michigan news website the ‘Gander in April. “They’re trying to limit access to medication abortion. They’re trying to define ‘personhood’ as beginning once an egg is fertilized (so you can’t do IVF in case any unused embryos are destroyed). They’re trying to limit travel of a woman from a state that’s banning abortion to a state that allows abortion, including military women, who are on these military bases without a choice.”
Rogers served as a member of the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2015. He voted against reproductive rights at every opportunity. Rogers co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, which would have given full legal rights to fetuses and embryos, and the RU-486 Suspension and Review Act, which would have withdrawn FDA approval of mifepristone, a drug commonly used in medication abortions.
