Abortion rights protesters attend a rally outside the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on June 24, 2022, following the United States Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

At an event last month, Michigan attorney general candidate Matt DePerno (R) said that Plan B is no different than fentanyl and should be banned in Michigan.

“You gotta figure out how to ban the pill from the state,” DePerno said in audio, taken from a conversation at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas last month and provided by a Democratic source on the condition of anonymity. When asked about ideas on how to ban the contraceptive, DePerno said: “But you have to stop it at the border. It would be no different than fentanyl. The state has to ban it, and it should be banned. But it’s just an issue of how do you enforce it; how do you make sure that it stops? That’s your problem.”

Plan B is a form of emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. The pill, also known as the “morning-after pill”, has nothing to do with the United States’ borders or fentanyl. It is a legal and safe medication that millions of people use.

Since the 1970s, Americans have had a constitutional right to contraception. Married couples were guaranteed the right in the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court decision. And unmarried people have the right through the 1971 Eisenstadt v. Baird decision.

“If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child,” wrote Supreme Court Justice William Brennan in the majority opinion for the Baird case.

Now that abortion is no longer a constitutional right for all Americans, the Republican Party is trying to diminish American rights even further with talks of banning contraception and revisiting the right to gay marriage.

DePerno is on the ballot to face incumbent Democrat Dana Nessel in November. DePerno has been accused of trespassing and is under criminal investigation for allegedly tampering with voting machines in 2020.