The following article by Gina Martinez was posted on the Time website September 6, 2018:
During the third day of his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Judge Brett Kavanaugh referred to the use of contraception as “abortion-inducing drugs.”
On Thursday, Kavanaugh was asked by Sen. Ted Cruz about his dissent in the Priests for Life v. the U.S. Department of Human and Health Services case. In 2015, while serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Kavanaugh sided with a religious organization that objected to providing contraception for employees with insurance.
Priests for Life contested the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirement that all health plans cover birth control, claiming that IUDs and emergency contraception causes abortion instead of acting as birth control. Under the ACA, employers who wished for the government to fund the contraceptives had to fill out a form to their insurers to avoid a monetary fine. In the suit, Priests for Life said filling out the form made them complicit in providing contraception and violated the organization’s religious freedom.