A year after Dobbs, lawyers in the United States are pushing for a right to contraception

In 2021, Republicans in Missouri sought to ban taxpayer funding for IUDs and emergency contraception. Missouri is one of four states — the others being Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas — that have removed Planned Parenthood, a major birth control provider, 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 reigned late last year that it violated the constitutional rights of parents by allowing clinics to provide teens with birth control without parental consent. If the ruling is upheld, it could jeopardize access to contraceptives for minors across the country.

So far, however, the Dobbs case has not sparked the kind of widespread attacks on birth control advocates feared. In fact, access to birth control has expanded in a handful of red states, according to the Guttmacher Institute. follows reproductive health measures.

In Indiana, Governor Eric Holcomb signed legislation allowing pharmacists to prescribe birth control. In West Virginia, Governor Jim Justice signed into law a bill requiring insurance plans to cover 12 months of contraceptive supplies from pharmacies. In Arkansas, Governor 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 birth control comes as the FDA considers selling birth control pills over the counter for the first time. A panel of agency advisors said last month that the benefits of over-the-counter birth control outweighed the risks. Awaiting possible action from the FDA, Senate Democrats recently reintroduced legislation that would require insurers to cover over-the-counter birth control.

But Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto, a Nevada Democrat and one of the bill’s lead sponsors, said she didn’t know if the measure’s backers would garner any Republican support in the current post-Dobbs climate. “We think we should,” she said, “but, you know, it’s a different and challenging time right now.”

In North Carolina, the Dobbs case and abortion politics doomed a bill confirming the right to contraception, said Sen. Lisa Grafstein, a Democrat who introduced the measure. Ms. Grafstein said in an interview that she had spoken to at least one Republican interested in becoming a co-sponsor.