Ms. Coleman and her allies in the movement say that complacency is what cost American women the right to abortion. They also see what they regard as worrisome efforts to restrict access to birth control.
In 2021, Republicans in Missouri tried to ban taxpayer funding for intrauterine devices and emergency contraception. Missouri is one of four states — the others are Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas — that have ejected Planned Parenthood, a major provider of birth control, from their Medicaid programs.
At the same time, the federal family planning program known as Title X is being challenged in Texas, where a federal judge ruled late last year that it violated parents’ constitutional rights by permitting clinics to provide birth control to teenagers without parental consent. If the ruling is upheld, it could threaten access to contraceptives for minors nationwide.
So far, though, the Dobbs case has not spawned the kind of widespread attacks on birth control that advocates feared. In fact, access to contraception has been expanded in a handful of red states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive health measures.
In Indiana, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed legislation allowing pharmacists to prescribe birth control. In West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice signed a bill requiring insurance plans to cover 12-month supplies of contraceptives from pharmacies. In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation requiring Medicaid to cover intrauterine devices and other long-acting reversible contraceptives for women who have just given birth. All are Republicans.
The push for laws declaring a right to contraception comes as the F.D.A. is considering allowing birth control pills to be sold over the counter for the first time. A panel of advisers to the agency said last month that the benefits of over-the-counter contraception outweighed the risks. In anticipation of possible action by the F.D.A., Senate Democrats recently reintroduced legislation that would require insurers to cover over-the-counter contraception.
But Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto, Democrat of Nevada and one of the bill’s chief sponsors, said she did not know if the measure’s backers could get any Republican support in the current post-Dobbs climate. “We think that we should,” she said, “but, you know, it’s a different and challenging time right now.”
