Washington, D.C. – Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX)delivered remarks on the House Floor during debate on H.R. 8373, Right to Contraception Act.
As Prepared for Delivery:
Serving as an OB/GYN in North Texas for almost three decades, I have personally prescribed contraceptives and seen the benefits they can have in the lives of the women who use them. I have and will continue to support a woman’s right to access contraception.
This is another bill brought to the House floor outside of regular order. Instead of work with Republicans, the majority hastily put forward an incomplete product that won’t receive a vote in the Senate.
The Right to Contraception Act would establish a statutory right for patients to obtain contraception and for doctors to prescribe it. Unfortunately, “contraception” is so broadly defined in the bill that it could guarantee access to medical abortion pills, or even contraceptives that might not be FDA approved.
Even if a product gets FDA approval; that does not always ensure its safety. Essure is a medical device previously sold by Bayer to cause sterilization. FDA approved this device in 2002 but didn’t start examining reported concerns by users until 2015. In 2018 the FDA restricted the sale of Essure and Bayer took the device completely off the market.
Dalkon Shield is an intrauterine birth control device (IUD), manufactured and sold by the A.H. Robins Company in the early 1970s. This device was responsible for many reported incidents of inflammatory pelvic infections, uterine perforations, and spontaneous septic abortions, as well as at least four deaths. The FDA requested that this device be taken off the market in October 1974, but a formal recall was never issued. When manufacturing ceased in 1976, more than 2 million devices had already been sold in the United States.
While the drug approval process at the FDA should be made faster and safer, imagine the dangers of allowing contraceptives the FDA has not considered.
I think you’d find consensus in the Energy and Commerce Committee regarding preserving access to contraception if Democrats had only chosen to work with Republicans instead of rushing this bill to the floor a few days after its introduction.
