July 13, 2023 03:29 PM UTC

Don't You Even, Cory Gardner

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Washington Post reports, the Food and Drug Administration has approved the first-ever oral contraceptive available without a doctor’s prescription. Making oral contraceptives available over the counter builds on the 2010 Affordable Care Act’s provision that eliminated insurance copays for the medication:

Federal regulators Thursday approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill available in the United States, a milestone in decades-long efforts to make oral contraceptives easier to obtain, especially by teenagers and women who don’t regularly see a doctor.

The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Opill, made by the consumer health giant Perrigo, comes six decades after daily birth control pills were introduced in the United States, drastically changing the lives of countless women and American society. And it means the country will join about 100 other nations that allow the sale of nonprescription birth control pills…

In Colorado politics, the issue of over-the-counter birth control became a major bone of contention in the 2014 U.S. Senate race, when Republican candidate Cory Gardner promoted the issue as a foil against critics of his career-long opposition to abortion rights. Gardner for years supported the state-level “Personhood” abortion ban ballot measures, the strict language of which would have outlawed common forms of birth control in addition to prohibiting abortion “from the moment of conception,” and was the cosponsor of federal legislation in Congress with similarly vague and broad wording.

When today’s decision was announced, Gardner popped up on social media to harvest unearned goodwill:

What’s the problem with Cory Gardner celebrating a policy change he’s been paying lip service to since 2014, you ask? It’s not the policy itself, which few on the left will complain about–but why the change became timely:

Health experts, citing the pill’s lengthy record of safety and effectiveness, have pushed for a nonprescription pill for years, but their campaign took on new urgency after the Supreme Court last year struck down the fundamental right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade. [Pols emphasis]

In 2014, Gardner hid behind support for over-the-counter birth control to muddy up his opposition to abortion rights. In 2023, Gardner wants credit for over-the-counter birth control after the three Supreme Court Justices Gardner put in office for life accomplished Gardner’s long-sought goal of eliminating the federal right to an abortion. And if Justice Clarence Thomas gets his way, the right to contraception is next.

With all of this in mind, over-the-counter birth control is not Cory Gardner’s victory to celebrate. In the post-Roe world, this is just an attempt to minimize the much greater damage to reproductive rights Gardner helped bring about.

At long last, Cory Gardner, thanks for nothing.