As studies show service members continue to struggle to access birth control, a group of Senate Democrats is pushing the Defense Department to do more to expand contraception services and counseling.
In a letter Tuesday to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a dozen Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee pushed for details on any “barriers preventing the department from implementing provisions mandated by Congress to protect and expand service members’ access to contraception and contraceptive counseling.”
“Expanding access to contraception is critical to meeting the needs of service members, as well as recruiting and retaining members of our armed forces,” the senators wrote in the letter, obtained exclusively by Military.com.
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The letter was organized by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and co-signed by every committee member aligned with Democrats except for Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who recently changed his party registration to independent but continues to caucus with Democrats.
The letter comes as Democrats have been focusing on reproductive rights and contraception access amid Monday’s two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which allowed states to ban abortion.
It also comes after the Senate Armed Services Committee for the first time…
