On Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz denounced Democratic legislation to ensure that employees receive contraception access in their health insurance plans in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, accusing Democrats of fooling voters through “misdirection.”
Cruz told the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins that the GOP-blocked Senate bill to prevent employers from refusing to cover contraception was simply a way to “distract people” from President Obama’s purported litany of scandals.
“They tried to convince Americans, and sadly they succeeded in convincing a number of Americans, that were somehow some people in the political sphere out to stop people from using contraceptives,” Cruz said. “I have literally never met anybody who wants to prohibit Americans from using contraceptives if they so desire. The allegation that there is somehow any effort at all to restrict access to contraceptives is looney, in the U.S. Senate the number of Senators advocating doing that is zero, they never have.”
While Cruz seems to miss the link between Hobby Lobby and access to contraception, he also doesn’t seem to understand a bill that he pledged to support: the Life at Conception Act. Like other personhood bills, the Life at Conception Act would outlaw some forms of birth control, along with abortion in all cases.
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists points out that “some of the most effective and reliable forms of contraception, such as oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and other forms of FDA-approved hormonal contraceptives could be banned” under personhood bills.
