WE know from the news that the GOP wants to take and some cases already has the right of choice from the people. The battle now is over contraception and the Dems have an attempt to protect access to this form of birth control.

Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic measure Wednesday to codify a federal right to contraception access. The bill would have prevented states from enacting legislation to limit access to forms of contraception including hormonal birth control and intrauterine devices, the Washington Post reports. Many Republicans called the bill unnecessary and government overreach; Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins of Maine were the only members of their party to vote to advance the measure. Every Democrat supported it.

“This should be an easy vote,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said before the count, per the New York Times. “It almost shouldn’t be necessary.” But Democrats were maneuvering to put Republicans on the record on reproductive rights, an issue on which the GOP stance is unpopular with voters. In vitro fertilization may be put to a vote next week, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote. “I expect we will see a lot more show votes this summer,” GOP Sen. John Thune had said Tuesday, per the AP. On Wednesday, Schumer countered that: “Today was not a show vote. This was a ‘show us who you are’ vote, and Senate Republicans showed the American people exactly who they are.”

The Democratic effort to codify the right began when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago; Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion said the right to contraception is another issue the court should reconsider. Republicans have opposed the effort while saying they support access to contraception, per the Times. Schumer could bring the Right to Contraception Act up for a vote again later.

This in my opinion is a little late….it should have been waiting for the SCOTUS ruling….but better late than never I guess.

Since the GOP is so concerned wirth women’s right of choice what will they make out of the news about men?

A novel birth control option for men, as easy as applying lotion once per day, appears to be effective within weeks with minimal side effects to boot, according to new research. NES/T, a hormonal solution to block sperm production, is applied to the shoulders once per day. One of 222 participants in a phase 2 trial tells NBC News the gel solution felt much like hand sanitizer. Applying it was “such an easy process,” the man says, adding the only possible side effects he experienced were acne and minor weight gain. In terms of participants’ sperm counts, 20% were sufficiently suppressed within five weeks, 52% by eight weeks, 62% by nine weeks, and 86% after 15 weeks, according to data presented Sunday at the Endocrine Society’s conference in Boston, per Gizmodo.

Developed by researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s Contraceptive Development Program, NES/T gets its name from its two main ingredients: nestorone and testosterone. Nestorone, a synthetic version of progesterone, lowers the levels of hormones responsible for fertility, including testosterone, in the blood and testes. Since this may reduce a man’s sex drive, testosterone is added to the gel “to maintain stable hormone levels in men’s blood, ensuring temporary sterility and minimizing side effects,” per Gizmodo. “We’re pretty pleased with the limited side effects that we have observed,” Diana Blithe, chief of the NICHD’s Contraceptive Development Program, tells the outlet. She was also pleasantly surprised to see sperm counts fall so quickly.

Researchers consider suppression effective for contraception to be no more than 1 million sperm per millimeter of semen, down from 15 million to 200 million per milliliter, per NBC. The median suppression time was eight weeks. But as many participants weren’t checked between weeks four and eight, the true median might be lower. “We’re really pleased with this result. And we think it will make the gel more attractive to people who maybe didn’t want to wait three months for it to reach its effectiveness,” Blithe tells Gizmodo. The research team has since launched a Phase 2B trial involving 400 men, with encouraging preliminary results, ahead of plans for a Phase 3 trial, to be discussed with the FDA next year. If all goes well, the gel could hit the market by the end of the decade, the BBC reports.

Will the GOP try to control men’s sex lives as they are doing with women?

Just wondering.

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“lego ergo scribo”