During confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh refers to birth control as 'abortion-inducing drugs'

Brett Kavanaugh.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Judge Brett Kavanaugh raised eyebrows on Thursday when he referred to contraception as "abortion-inducing drugs."

Kavanaugh, who dissented from the majority that ruled in favor of the Obama administration, told Cruz it "quite clearly" seemed the contraception mandate was a "substantial burden on their religious exercise." Had Priests for Life filled out a form asking the government to fund the contraceptives, Kavanaugh added, this workaround would still have made them "complicit in the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objected to."

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Priests for Life used the term "abortion-inducing drugs" in the lawsuit to describe contraception, and Kavanaugh echoing the phrase drew outrage from Democrats, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who tweeted: "Newsflash, Brett Kavanaugh: Contraception is NOT abortion. Anyone who says so is peddling extremist ideology — not science — and has no business sitting on the Supreme Court."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.