Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh called birth control ‘abortion inducing drugs’

Brett Kavanaugh has been criticised for referring to birth control as "abortion-inducing drugs."

The US Supreme Court nominee was speaking during a senate testimony yesterday when he made the incorrect link between contraceptives and medicines that induce terminations. Kavanaugh was asked by senator Ted Cruz about his involvement in a 2015 case which saw a pro-life Catholic group having to provide contraception despite their "religious objection." He said that the group was told to fill out a form that would "... make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs." Kavanaugh was harshly criticised for comparing birth control with abortion-inducing drugs by women's rights activists and family planning groups. Planned Parenthood's Dawn Laguens told HuffPost that the comment was "propaganda." She said:

"Kavanaugh referred to birth control – something more than 95 percent of women use in their lifetime – as an 'abortion-inducing drug,' which is not just flat-out wrong, but is anti-woman, anti-science propaganda. "Women have every reason to believe their health and their lives are at stake."

Kavanaugh has stated that he recognises that the US's Roe v. Wade case (which guaranteed a woman's right to procure an abortion in the States) is binding, however he has expressed support for further restricting abortion access in the past. Last year, he criticised the decision to allow an unaccompanied refugee minor to obtain an abortion, claiming that "abortion on demand" should not be permitted for "unlawful immigrant minors."