Legal Battle Brewing As Trump's HHS Prepares To Ax Free Birth Control Rule
Source: Talking Points Memo
By ALICE OLLSTEIN Published AUGUST 21, 2017 6:00 AM
The Trump administration is preparing to roll back the Obama-era free birth control mandate, a move legal groups say would be unconstitutional and subject to a court challenge.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the rule will be very similar to a draft version leaked in May, which would vastly expand the number and types of businesses eligible for an exemption from Obamacares rule requiring all employers to provide insurance coverage of all contraceptive methods without co-pays. If enacted as drafted, it would allow not only religious groups but thousands of non-profits and for-profit businesses to leave birth control out of their employees insurance altogether.
Lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, National Womens Law Center and other groups say such a rule would violate government process rules, gender discrimination laws, the separation of church and state.
A key provision of the Affordable Care Act made more than a dozen preventative care services available free of charge for people covered by health insurancefrom primary care checkups to vaccines to diabetes screenings. The only service targeted by the Trump rule change is coverage of contraception.
This raises a couple of constitutional issues, including sex discrimination, because theyre singling out care that only women need, explained Brigitte Amiri, a staff attorney with the ACLU. They are not targeting other kinds of preventative care, and theyre taking away a benefit thats otherwise guaranteed by law. Additionally, theyre targeting something, contraception, that allows women to achieve equality in society.
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-birth-control-rule-hhs
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Wait..... but...........
ResistantAmerican17
(3,829 posts)dalton99a
(81,599 posts)The Bizarre Christian "Quiverfull" Movement Pushing Women to Procreate for "God's Army"
Leaders of the Quiverfull movement encourage women to have as many as 20 children, regardless of the effects on their health.
By Vyckie Garrison / RH Reality Check
August 29, 2012, 11:48 AM GMT
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)Children are devastating to the finances of low-wage workers.