Highlights: At the Louisiana Right to Life Forum on Nov. 15, 2013, Mike Johnson — still lawyer, and not yet a public official — spoke about his efforts challenging the Department of Health and Human Services’ contraceptive mandate, a provision of the Affordable Care Act that required employers to provide birth control coverage as part of their insurance plans.
“Everybody asks us all the time: ‘Why do you guys care so much? The HHS mandate it’s really just about contraception, sterilization. … What’s the big deal? Well, those are abortifacients,” Johnson says. “The morning after pill, as we know, is an abortifacient.”
Neither sterilization or emergency contraception medications like Plan B, are abortifacients.
Johnson is known for being among the most anti-abortion lawmakers in Congress, and for railing against the use of “abortion as a form of birth control” before he was in office.
As a lawyer, Johnson worked on multiple cases representing plaintiffs who refused to dispense, counsel, or provide emergency contraception, which they considered to be abortion-inducing drugs.
His position places Johnson outside the mainstream: According to an Economist/YouGov poll conducted last year, 91 percent of voters believe birth control should be made free and widely available if abortion is not — including 61 percent of voters who oppose abortion.
At the time Johnson equated emergency contraception with abortion at the Louisiana Right to Life Forum, he was part of the legal team representing Louisiana College. The small Christian college, based in Pineville, was suing Kathleen Sebelius, then secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, over the ACA requirement that the college provide birth control coverage for its employees. The school, according to the lawsuit, objected to providing “so-called ‘emergency contraceptives’” that they claimed “cause early abortions.”
Years earlier, Johnson was a lawyer for the right-wing religious litigation shop Alliance Defense Fund, later rechristened the Alliance Defending Freedom. While working for the ADF, Johnson represented Toni Lemly, a Louisiana nurse who refused to dispense emergency contraception — or even tell patients about the medication.
Since arriving in Congress, Johnson has continued to champion these views. He supported a rule that allowed health care workers with a “religious or conscience” objection to providing birth control or sterilization to refuse to participate in those procedures.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
At the Louisiana Right to Life Forum on Nov. 15, 2013, Mike Johnson — still lawyer, and not yet a public official — spoke about his efforts challenging the Department of Health and Human Services’ contraceptive mandate, a provision of the Affordable Care Act that required employers to provide birth control coverage as part of their insurance plans.
As a lawyer, Johnson worked on multiple cases representing plaintiffs who refused to dispense, counsel, or provide emergency contraception, which they considered to be abortion-inducing drugs.
And as a congressman, Johnson has repeatedly voted against efforts to expand, fund, or protect access to birth control and other family planning services — including for members of the military.
While working for the ADF, Johnson represented Toni Lemly, a Louisiana nurse who refused to dispense emergency contraception — or even tell patients about the medication.
He supported a rule that allowed health care workers with a “religious or conscience” objection to providing birth control or sterilization to refuse to participate in those procedures.
He also voted against the Right to Contraception Act, which would have protected access to birth control, and participated in a number of legislative efforts to keep the bill from getting to the floor.
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