A federal judge in Pennsylvania put a nationwide block on Trump administration rules allowing virtually any employer to deny workers' birth control coverage, one day after a federal judge halted the rules in a smaller group of states.
In her ruling Monday afternoon, Judge Wendy Beetlestone sided with a group of Democratic attorneys general challenging the administration's policy as unconstitutional and in violation of the Affordable Care Act. The Trump rules, which would allow broad leeway for employers to claim a religious or moral objection to covering birth control, were set to take effect Monday.
Beetlestone’s ruling is
more sweeping than a similar decision Sunday night in a different court. U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Northern California issued a partial injunction blocking the policy from taking effect in the 13 states and Washington, D.C., that were behind the separate lawsuit.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for the health and economic independence of women in Pennsylvania and across America,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who led the lawsuit, said in a statement. “Women need contraception for their health because contraception is medicine, pure and simple."
The pair of back-to-back federal court rulings is yet another setback for the Trump administration’s attempts to roll back one of the most impactful and controversial provisions stemming from the Affordable Care Act — the mandate that health insurance fully cover all forms of FDA-approved birth control with no co-pays.
The Trump administration policy would be a major expansion of an Obama-era accommodation that allowed only houses of worship and closely held private companies with religious objections from complying with the birth control coverage mandate. The exemption was expanded to all closely held private companies as a result of the Supreme Court's 2014 Hobby Lobby case.
"No American should be forced to violate his or her own conscience in order to abide by the laws and regulations governing our healthcare system," HHS spokesperson Caitlin Oakley said in a statement Monday after the ruling. "The final rules affirm the Trump Administration’s commitment to upholding the freedoms afforded all Americans under our Constitution."
While the Trump administration's health department estimated that between 6,400 and 127,000 women will lose coverage of contraceptives as a result of the new exemptions, reproductive rights advocates argued that the change could affect millions of people.
The National Women's Law Center estimated last year nearly 63 million women had insurance coverage of FDA-approved birth control without out-of-pocket costs due to the Obamacare mandate. Fatima Goss Graves, the group's president and CEO, praised the judge's preliminary injunction on Monday and vowed to keep fighting the Trump policy as the legal battle continues.
"Until these discriminatory rules are blocked for good, the health and livelihoods of millions across the country are still threatened," she said.
The Trump administration's birth control rules have been tied up in legal challenges for more than a year. The administration first issued a rule allowing wide exemptions in 2017 without taking public comment, and it
was swiftly blocked by multiple courts. After receiving more than 100,000 public comments, the administration in November issued a second rule that was nearly identical.
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Originally Posted by Swordsmyth
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