Issue: On Friday, October 6 the Trump administration issued a rule that serves to roll back the ACA mandate for free contraception coverage. The new rule allows a broad group of employers and insurers to opt-out of covering contraceptives based on religious or vague moral objections. While positioned as a protection for religious liberty, according to The New York Times this rule could, in fact, deny contraception coverage to hundreds of thousands of women.
According to Mara Gandal-Powers, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, “The Trump administration is treating birth control as if it’s not even health care. We see this as part of the larger war they are waging on women’s health. For some [women], it means choosing between preventive care like contraceptives and paying their rent, their mortgage, electric bill.”
Anne Davis of Physicians for Reproductive Health argues that the widened exemptions will leave many women “vulnerable to the whim of their employers. … An employer’s beliefs have no place in these private decisions, just as they would not in any other conversation about a patient’s health care.”
Actions:
1) Join the WRRC for a postcard/strategy party on Thursday, October 12, at 4 PM. Come with your ideas for how we can best resist this move. Please RSVP to pmadaio@comcast.net if you plan to attend. Pam will email you to confirm the location.
2) Contact the White House and let Trump know you see this ruling for what it is – an assault on women’s health care and ultimately their economic equality.
- Comment Line 202-456-1111
- Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Suggested Talking Points:
- I’m writing/calling in strong opposition to your rule that would radically change the Affordable Care Act provision requiring insurance plans to cover birth control.
- Birth control is essential health care — and 62.4 million women have already benefited from the Affordable Care Act’s birth control provision.
- Better access to birth control has brought unintended pregnancy rates overall, and among teens, to the lowest they’ve been in decades and saved women $1.4 billion in 2013 alone.
- Stripping away this access also strips women of their ability to control their reproductive health and in turn their economic equality
- Unintended pregnancies cost the American Taxpayer 21 billion a year (according to the Guttmacher Institute) with public insurance programs paying for 68% of births in 2015.
- A 2014 study published by the NCBI, provides empirical evidence that family planning can decrease the number of adults and children living in poverty.
- The mandate to cover birth control is also very popular; 68 percent of people say they support it.
3) Consider supporting organizations that will fight this rule in the courts, (i.e., National Women’s Law Center, Center For Reproductive Rights, ACLU
For More Information:
Challenges to contraceptive coverage – what’s at stake
Trump administration narrows affordable care act’s contraception mandate
Trump rule could deny birth control coverage to hundreds of thousands of women
SIAN Contact Name: Pam Madaio
SIAN Contact Email: seaislandsactionnetwork@gmail.com
Sea Islands Action Network 