WASHINGTON – It’s not just about abortion.

After pounding away at Republicans over the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Democrats are broadening their reproductive rights rallying cry to emphasize birth control.

A new advocacy group is running ads both in competitive House races as well as in communities with large student populations warning that the right to birth control pills, condoms and “your girlfriend’s IUD” could be taken away by Republicans.

The ads, which are running in eight states though November, focus on legislation opposed by most House Republicans to enshrine into law the right to use contraceptives.

They’re hitting YouTube, Hulu, Netflix and other places at a time when recent polling has shown abortion taking a back seat among voters to their concerns about the economy and inflation.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday urged voters to remember how they felt in June when the Supreme Court ruled that Americans no longer have a constitutional right to abortion.

He also warned that the justices could go after other previously protected rights.

“I just want to make clear — I know you all know, but I’ll make sure — they’re talking about the right to use contraception and the right to marry who you love,” Biden said.

Republicans say Democrats have resorted to fearmongering because voters are rejecting their stewardship of the economy.

Political forecaster David Wasserman, who tracks House races for the Cook Political Report, said talking about contraceptive access can help Democrats portray the threat to reproductive health care to as broad a segment of the electorate as possible. Contraception is widely popular.

“But they also run the risk of being tuned out if voters see the threat as too difficult to believe,” he said. “So, for Democrats, there is a lot of internal debate over how to communicate to best persuade voters, and that’s a difficult calculation.”

Related: Biden vows codifying Roe decision would be first bill in an expanded Democratic majority

Are contraceptives at risk?

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas called on the court to “reconsider” other rights established by the high court, including access to contraception and gay marriage.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the court’s majority opinion, stressed that “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

But Liz Jaff, the political strategist who heads the advocacy group Americans for Contraception, which is behind the new ad, said she doesn’t want to get fooled by the court – again.

“Everyone kept saying, `Oh, you know, Roe v. Wade is not going to be overturned,’” she said. “And here we are.”

What did the House vote on?

In July, House Democrats passed a bill to codify the federal right to contraception.Nearly all House Republicans opposed it and it hasn’t been considered in the closely divided Senate.

The GOP’s objections to the legislation include that it would force health care providers to offer contraceptives, even if that contradicted their religious beliefs.

Previously: 8 House Republicans join Democrats in voting to codify access to birth control

What do the ads say?

The ads that started running this week emphasize the fact that the issue, including the House vote, hasn’t received the same attention as the fight over abortion rights.

“Did you hear they’re voting against our right to condoms in Washington?” a guy in a bar says to his beer-drinking bro in one of the ads.

“No, they’re not,” the friend responds incredulously.

The ads, which urge viewers to contact their congressman, portray the issue as not just important to women, but also to a couple who already has four kids, a dad concerned about his college-aged son and a balding, grey-bearded man in a flannel shirt who declares lawmakers are “supposed to protect our freedoms, not take them away.”

Who is being targeted?

The ads are running statewide in Iowa and North Carolina, as well as in specific House districts in those states and in Arizona, California, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio and Texas.

Some of those districts are represented by Republicans in competitive re-election races, including Arizona’s David Schweikert and Ohio’s Steve Chabot, the first Republicans targeted this week. (Neither campaign responded to requests for comment.)

Chabot’s Cincinnati district includes two major universities. Schweikert’s district also has a heavy student presence, according to Jaff, who said her group is also focused on areas where there are major employers who might be concerned about their workers’ losing access to contraceptives.

Who is paying for the ads?

Jaff declined to identify the donors for the ad campaign, which she said will cost more than $1 million. Because the ads aren’t strictly focused on the Nov. 8 election, they are running through November in what Jaff hopes will be the first phase of a larger campaign that could expand to other levels of government besides Congress and include voter registration efforts.

Will this work as a political issue?

Michael McAdams, spokesman for the campaign arm of House Republicans, said the ads show “Democrats are panicked because their strategy of ignoring voters’ serious economic concerns is backfiring and now they have to resort to fearmongering false attacks.”

Democratic strategist Dan Pfieffer, who was one of President Barack Obama’s closest advisers, said the issue of contraceptive access is not going to shift a race that Democrats were going to lose into won it will definitely win.

But, he added, “all of this is happening in an incredibly close political environment where just a handful of voters can make a gigantic difference in House races centers across the country.”

“And so reminding people of an issue that we know doesn’t just motivate Democrats, but moves independents dramatically against Republicans is a smart investment of money,” he said.

Kyle Kondik, who analyzes elections at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said that while abortion remains an important election issue, he’s not sure how much voters will believe their access to contraception is threatened.

“Although,” he added, “perhaps the Dobbs decision has opened eyes in that regard.”

Related: Abortion bans and LGBTQ-targeted laws are catching some school campuses in the crosshairs

More: In states where abortion is now outlawed, students ramp up activism

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democrats warn condoms, birth control pills at risk under Republicans

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