In comments submitted last night, the National Partnership for Women & Families calls on the Trump administration to rescind its interim final rules rolling back the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) guarantee of contraceptive coverage in health insurance because they “discriminate against women” and will “harm [women’s] health and well-being.” The administration released the two rules in October; together, they allow virtually any employer or university to deprive women of contraceptive coverage based on religious or moral objections.

“The ACA’s guarantee of copay-free birth control coverage has helped more than 62 million women and is one of the key reasons the ACA is the greatest advance for women’s health in a generation,” said National Partnership President Debra L. Ness. “The Trump administration’s rules are blatantly discriminatory and would undermine this progress, allowing employers to deny women coverage for essential preventive health care. The rules put politics and an extremist agenda ahead of women’s health by injecting employers into decisions about basic health care that should be made by women and their health care providers. Denying women contraceptive coverage severely undermines their health and economic security. Both rules are unacceptable, and we call on the administration to withdraw them immediately.”

In its comments, the National Partnership emphasizes that the guarantee of copay-free insurance coverage for birth control is critical to millions of women’s ability to access contraception, which enables them to be “equal participants in the social, political and economic life of the nation.” The comments also condemn the administration’s rules for:

• Discriminating against women and violating existing laws and the Constitution;
• Exacerbating existing health disparities and harming LGBT people, people of color and those in other marginalized communities;
• Undermining the role of science in policymaking; and
• Eroding the fundamental American value that religion should not be used to discriminate against others.

The National Partnership joins hundreds of thousands of individuals and leading women’s health, reproductive health and justice, labor rights, LGBT rights, disability rights and civil rights advocates in submitting comments denouncing the rules. The National Partnership’s comment letter on the moral accommodation is available here, and on the religious accommodation here.