Population Matters-USA – working for a sustainable world

One of my former partners rephrased the Bible, saying: “what the lord giveth, the lord can take away.” I fear that he might be correct.

Supreme Court Justice Thomas concurred with the majority in the Dobbs 2022 decision, taking away the right to abortion care in all states. It is frightening that he stated, in that decision, that the Court should reconsider “Griswold”. “Griswold” was the 1965 decision which made contraception legal nationwide. Unfortunately, Thomas is not alone. There has been an undercurrent of right-wing people and politicians who feel that birth control should be outlawed. Perhaps they come from the religious viewpoint that “every sperm is sacred”, to quote Monty Python. Or perhaps they want more poor people to do the world’s scutwork so the rich can sit back and enjoy life.

A bill in Congress intends to insure our right to contraception. Called the “Right to Contraception Act”, its short description states that the bill’s purpose is: “To protect a person’s ability to access contraceptives and to engage in contraception, and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide contraceptives, contraception, and information related to contraception.”

This bill passed in the House in 2022. Unfortunately, it was blocked in the Senate two years later. Some Democratic senators are still trying to pass it. Senator John Hickenlooper wrote me: “…I am a cosponsor of the Right to Contraception Act and voted to advance the bill when it came to the Senate floor on June 5th [2025]”.

Legislators in at least four states have tried to limit access to contraception by various means. Some states have restricted public funding. Indiana law prohibits placing an IUD after a woman gives birth because of the misapprehension that IUDs cause abortions. In addition, some states have included some contraceptives, including emergency contraception, in their restrictive abortion laws. I wish that it were as easy to poke holes in these lawmakers’ condoms as it is to poke holes in their reasoning!

Colorado has legal support for our right to birth control, as do some other states. Ours is called “The Reproductive Health Equity Act” and is part of the 2022 law guaranteeing access to abortion care.

There is another glimmer of hope in Washington. Both houses of Congress have bills to stop the Global Gag Rule (GGR). This rule of law prevents any recipient of federal funding to discuss abortion. When women can’t find out about legal abortion services, often they seek unsafe abortions. Thus, the GGR is responsible for the deaths of thousands of desperate people.

The Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (Global HER) Act would reverse the GGR and prevent any similar act in the future. It would allow healthcare workers the freedom of speech to tell patients how to access safe abortion services. It would save lives of mothers and teenagers.

According to the World Health Organization (in which the USA no longer participates): “Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health….”

Please contact your senators and ask them to support the Right to Contraception Act (S.4381). I suspect that all US senators have used contraception at some time in their lives; all Americans should have that right! Also, ask your senators and representatives to support the Global HER Act; that’s S.280 in the Senate and H.R.764 in the House.

©Richard Grossman MD, 2026

Image courtesy of Plan C

Michael McLachlan walked up the steps of the US Supreme Court Building alone, with his mind set for the trial, while his family watched from the oval plaza outside. McLachlan was the Colorado Solicitor General in 2000, and was intent on keeping abortion access safe.

Colorado’s “safe access zone (SAZ)” law was at stake. It says that no one could approach closer than 8 feet of a patient without the patient’s permission. This applies when the patient is inside a 100 foot zone, based on the door of a clinic. This law, enacted in 1993, did not limit speech—it only limited unwarranted approach. The law was contested as interfering with the First Amendment right to free speech but was supported by the Colorado courts.

When I asked Barbara McLachlan, Michael’s widow, about the actual trial with the Supremes, she told me about one question asked by Judge Scalia:

“Why is the limit 8 feet?”

McLachlan was always sharp and ready for anything, so replied “Because that is the maximum distance a person can spit.” And Scalia laughed!

Colorado has been very supportive of access to abortion care. It was one of the first states to legalize abortion (1967), before access became legal nation-wide (1973). Although there have been several attempts to decrease this access, we recently provided protection to this right by passing an amendment to the Colorado constitution. It prohibits state and local governments from denying, impeding, or discriminating against that right to abortion. It also repeals the prohibition against using public funds for abortion services.

Unfortunately, many other states have limited access to abortion or completely prohibited this vital part of medical care. Many women are coming to Colorado for abortions. In addition, women are also receiving abortion pills by mail from Colorado-based telemedicine.

Some of the states that forbid abortion care try to keep their women from having abortions. Some laws try to forbid a pregnant woman to leave her state to go to a more liberal state. Nevertheless, abortion providers in Colorado and New Mexico see a lot of patients from Oklahoma and Texas.

Pills have caused a revolution in abortion care. Pills can be mailed to a pregnant person living in a restrictive state; organizations have been started for just that purpose. Plan C (www.plancpills.org) is one of the organizations started to inform women about the availability of abortion care by telemedicine. When contacted by someone who is pregnant and who desires an abortion, Plan C will ask them to fill out a form about their medical history, then (if they qualify) refer them to a site where they can purchase pills for an abortion. This system can be used by anyone in any state in the union, but people in restrictive states are most likely to use it.

The people who actually supply the medication are at risk of retaliation by authorities in restrictive states. Perhaps the worst example is Texas. It has an malevolent law the purpose of which is to intimidate non-Texans who provide medication abortion pills to Texan women. The law would levy a fine of at least $100,000 to someone who prescribes or mails abortion pills to a woman in Texas. This law encourages Texans to spy on each other and relies on fear. The differences of abortion laws in different states has incited interjurisdictional abortion wars.

Coloradans who prescribe abortion pills to people in restrictive states risk being indicted for breaking the law in the other state. Last spring the Colorado legislature voted for a law to offer them protection. The name of the prescriber must be left off the medication. In addition, The new Colorado law shields abortion patients and providers from actions initiated by other states.