Right to Contraception Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Washington for yielding.

While practicing medicine for over 30 years back in Texas, I personally prescribed a lot of contraceptives. I have seen the benefit that they have over the lives of women who use them, and I will continue to support a woman's right to access contraception.

But this bill was brought to the floor of the House urgently and outside of regular order. There was no attempt to work with Republicans. The majority hastily put forward an incomplete product that, at the end of the day, is never going to see the light of day in the Senate.

The Right to Contraception Act would establish a statutory right for patients to obtain contraception and for doctors to prescribe. The kindest thing I can say about this legislation is that it is duplicative and unnecessary. But, unfortunately, it can also be damaging.

Contraception is so broadly defined that it could guarantee access to medical abortion pills or even contraceptives that might not have FDA approval. It could lead to the dispensing of unsafe products. Even if a product gets FDA approval, it does not always ensure its safety.

Essure was a medical device previously sold to cause sterilization. The FDA approved this device in 2002, but it didn't start examining reported concerns by users until 2015. In 2018, the FDA restricted the sale of Essure, and the manufacturer took the device completely off the market.

The Dalkon Shield is an intrauterine birth control device manufactured and sold in the early 1970s. This device was responsible for many reported incidents of inflammatory infections, uterine perforations, spontaneous septic abortions, as well as at least four deaths. The FDA requested this device be taken off the market in October of 1974 but never issued a formal recall. Under the language of this bill considered today, a provider could provide that. When manufacturing ceased in 1976, more than 2 million of these devices had already been sold in the United States.

Madam Speaker, I am the first to agree that the drug approval process at the FDA should be made faster, more transparent, and safer. But imagine the dangers of allowing contraceptives and devices where the FDA has not even considered their safety.

Madam Speaker, you will find consensus in the Energy and Commerce Committee amongst Republicans regarding preserving access to contraception if the Democrats had only decided to work. We had no legislative hearing; we had no subcommittee markup; and we had no full committee markup.

The bill was introduced last Friday and brought to the Rules Committee on Monday. I am also a member of the Rules Committee, so that was the only hearing that we had on this legislation. As I like to tell people, Rules Committee members are like the apex predators of the legislative process. We are only there at the end of the road.

Madam Speaker, this bill is bad, and I urge it not to be adopted.

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