In a statement on her support for the bill, Mace wrote that she was voting “to protect access to contraceptives, to protect every woman in South Carolina,” arguing that the bill “will allow people to obtain contraceptives, establish the right for healthcare providers to provide contraceptives and information about contraceptives, and also protects different contraceptive methods, devices, and medications used to prevent pregnancy, oral contraceptives, emergency contraceptives, and intrauterine devices.” Implicit in her framing of the legislation — and in her sartorial stunt — is the accusation that, by voting against the bill, the vast majority of her Republican colleagues opposed codifying access to contraception.

But we should consider what Republicans were actually voting against — because that’s not all that the RCA does. Far from it. As John McCormack noted in an analysis of the bill earlier this week, H.R. 8373 “explicitly condemns (in one of its official findings) state conscience laws that protect health-care providers who refuse to offer contraception,” undermines parental-consent laws when it comes to contraceptives, and could also “create a federal right to Mifepristone, the abortion drug used to kill an unborn baby during the first ten weeks of pregnancy.” What’s more, it could effectively make it impossible to bar taxpayer funding to abortion mills such as Planned Parenthood, so long as those abortion providers also provide contraception…