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Join NowMoveOn: Birth control access is basic health care; new rules cater to extremists
WASHINGTON, DC — Moments ago, the Trump Administration issued new a new rule rolling back the federal requirement that employers include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans. The decision, which vastly expands exemptions for those employers who cite moral or religious objections to providing birth control, will impact the more than 55 million women who have access to birth control without co-payments thanks to the Obama Administration contraceptive coverage mandate. Under the new rules, hundreds of thousands of women could lose birth control benefits that they now receive at no out-of-pocket cost under the Affordable Care Act.
In response, Anna Galland, Executive Director of MoveOn.org Civic Action, released the following statement:
“It is dismaying that Republicans are still fighting over a woman’s access to birth control in 2017. By eliminating the guarantee of no-cost contraception, the Trump Administration is inserting itself into the lives of millions of women across the country and their families. This decision will put employers and school administrators in charge of whether women can access basic contraceptive products, making it harder to plan for and have a family and otherwise manage their health. As if all of this were not enough, Trump has stacked the Department of Health and Human services with anti-science, anti-women’s health extremists who don’t believe that women have a right to basic forms of reproductive health care. Now those same officials are revoking millions of women’s access to birth control.
“The vast majority of women will use birth control in the course of their lifetime. Most Americans support no-copay birth control and consider it a non-controversial topic, because most Americans understand that a woman’s ability to access basic health care should not be up for debate. A woman’s health care decisions should be kept between her and her doctor—not her boss or the president.
“First the Trump administration tried to kick millions of people off their health insurance, drastically cut Medicaid, and repeal the ACA, but have so far failed in significant part because of grassroots outrage; now they’re trying to undermine access to birth control for 55 million women. Birth control access is basic health care, period. We will not sit back and allow the Trump Administration to rob millions of women of the right to make their own health care decisions.”
Photo: Flickr / Joe Brusky