An attempt by United States Senate Democrats to override the Supreme Court's controversial birth control ruling failed to muster enough votes to move forward on Wednesday, but lawmakers vowed to keep pressing the issue heading into the midterm elections, according to The Associated Press.
Senators, including three Republicans, voted 56-43 for the bill, which would bar employers from discriminating against female employees in coverage of preventive health services, including contraception, the AP reported.
That was short of the 60-vote hurdle needed to move the bill forward, but Senate Democratic leaders promised to bring the contraception issue up again, according to the AP.
"Women across the country today watched as all but three Republicans showed they care more about protecting the rights of CEOs and corporations than about protecting the rights of women to access critical health care coverage," Senator Patty Murray of Washington, one of the bill's sponsors, said at a news conference, the AP reported.
The Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision on June 30 allowed corporations held by a family or a small number of people to forgo for religious reasons requirements in President Barack Obama's signature healthcare reform law that employers' health plans cover birth control, according to the AP.
The court's male justices sided with retail arts and crafts supplier Hobby Lobby, whose owners objected to providing employees certain methods of contraception that the owners considered forms of abortion, the AP reported. Murray and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado responded last week with the bill to override that decision.
Forty-four other Democrats signed on as co-sponsors, and it was endorsed by medical groups such as the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, according to the AP. Democrats in the House of Representatives have a companion bill that stands little chance of passage in the Republican-controlled body.
