Politifact ran a fact check on Dem. Senator Kamala Harris’ claim that Brett Kavanaugh believes birth control is an abortion-inducing drug and found that she was wrong.
Harris issued the following tweet on September 7th:
Kavanaugh chooses his words very carefully, and this is a dog whistle for going after birth control. He was nominated for the purpose of taking away a woman’s constitutionally protected right to make her own health care decisions. Make no mistake – this is about punishing women. pic.twitter.com/zkBjXzIvQI
— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) September 7, 2018
Senator Dianne Feinstein shared Harris’ concerns and had also sent a tweet falsely characterizing Kavanaugh’s comments a day earlier.
Judge Kavanaugh just said Burwell v. Hobby Lobby was about “abortion-inducing drugs.” That’s a GROSS misunderstanding of the case, which was about insurance coverage for contraceptives. It’s further proof of Kavanaugh’s hostility toward women’s reproductive freedom. #WhatsAtStake
— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) September 6, 2018
As Politifact points out, “Harris’ tweet takes Kavanaugh’s statement out of context. Harris cut an important second out of the clip — the attribution. Kavanaugh said, ‘They said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objecting to. ‘They’ refers to a Catholic nonprofit group, Priests for Life. Kavanaugh was answering a question from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about a case in which he argued Priests for Life shouldn’t have to provide women with the contraceptive coverage mandated by the Affordable Care Act for religious reasons.”
“We rate this statement False,” Politifact says of Harris’ tweet.