Biden congratulates Modi

Joanna Walters

Joe Biden has congratulated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his National Democratic Alliance for their election victory to form a new government for a third straight term, he posted on X.

The friendship between our nations is only growing as we unlock a shared future of unlimited potential,” the US president said.

However Modi’s party lost its parliamentary majority, in a surprise result.

The White House office of management and budget just announced that Joe Biden supports the Right to Contraception act, which the Democratic-led Senate is expected to vote on later today.

“The Administration strongly supports Senate passage of S. 4381, the Right to Contraception Act, which would protect the fundamental right to access contraception and help ensure that women can make decisions about their health, lives, and families,” the office wrote.

Here’s more:

Contraception is an essential part of reproductive health care that has become more important than ever following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the ensuing crisis for women’s health. Dangerous and extreme abortion bans are putting women’s health and lives at risk and disrupting access to critical health care services, including contraception, as health care providers are forced to close in states across the country. Contraception is also under attack. Officials in some states have made clear they want to ban or restrict birth control in addition to abortion, and Republicans in Congress have attacked contraception access nationwide by proposing to defund the Title X Family Planning Program. Attacks on contraception are an affront to women’s dignity and their ability to make their own decisions about their lives.

Women must have the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions, including the right to decide if and when to start or grow their family. Now is the time to safeguard the right to contraception once and for all.

The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, argued yesterday that legislation protecting contraception access is a necessary response to the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022.

That decision was authored by five of the conservative justices appointed by Republicans presidents, three of whom were handpicked by Donald Trump.

“We are kidding ourselves if we think the hard-right is satisfied with simply overturning Roe,” the majority leader said in a speech on the Senate floor.

“And for all those who say it can never happen, remember: people said before Dobbs that Roe would never be overturned. And of course, unfortunately it was, by the rightwing Maga court, appointed by Donald Trump and our Republican colleagues here in the Senate.”

He continued:

Supporting federal protections for contraceptives should be definition of simple and commonsense and easy to choose, too. The bill we will vote on tomorrow simply says if you want to access birth control, or if you’re a health care provider wanting to prescribe birth control, the government has no right to interfere. Doesn’t that seem like common sense? After all, access to birth control is something 90% of Americans support.

Of course, we’re already hearing the same predictable, tired and unpersuasive retorts from the other side. That this vote is somehow unnecessary, that birth control could never possibly be at risk, that this is much ado about nothing. That is simply not true.

Ahead of the vote on legislation protecting access to contraception, Katie Britt, a conservative Republican senator from Alabama, accused Democrats of “scaremongering” by pursuing a bill that goes too far.

“This week, my colleagues across the aisle will start their ‘summer of scare tactics’,” Britt said in a floor speech yesterday.

“Unfortunately, this is continuing the campaign of fearmongering we’ve already seen. Contraception is available in every state across the nation. And, of course, I want to be absolutely, 100% clear, that I support continued nationwide access to contraception.”

She said the Right to Contraception Act, which Democrats are bringing up for a vote in the Senate later this afternoon “tramples on foundational religious liberty protections that have long been bipartisan – and truly should remain bipartisan”.

The measure needs 60 votes to pass. Democrats control 51 seats, and we’ll have to see if the legislation can win nine Republican votes.

Good morning, US politics blog readers. When the supreme court’s conservatives overturned Roe v Wade and allowed states to ban abortion nearly two years ago, rightwing justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion where he said the court should also “reconsider” rulings guaranteeing same-sex marriage rights and access to contraception. Months later, Congress passed legislation protecting the former, and today, the Democratic-led Senate will hold a vote on a bill to guarantee access to the former. “Who knows how far the hard-right will go?” the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on the Senate floor yesterday. “Two years ago, the Maga court eliminated the protections of Roe. Tomorrow it could be something else.”

It’s unclear if the legislation will pass, but the vote serves as a sign of a dynamic that will play out in both chambers of Congress as the November presidential election draws nearer. With little chance of passing substantive legislation ahead of the rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, congressional leaders are instead teeing up messaging bills intended to put their opponents in a bind, particularly those occupying vulnerable seats. The vote on the contraception bill is a prime example of that, and begins at 3.45pm.

Here’s what else is going on today:

• The White House is not pleased by a Wall Street Journal story saying Biden occasionally has trouble conducting conversations in private. Many of those quoted in the story are Republicans.

• Hunter Biden’s trial on federal gun charges is scheduled to continue in Wilmington, Delaware.

• The president is in France to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day, and visit with Emmanuel Macron.