Challenges to the Birth Control Coverage Benefit

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) guarantees that women receive health insurance coverage for all FDA-approved methods of birth control, sterilization, and related education and counseling without cost-sharing – which means without deductibles or co-pays.  This benefit has been a tremendous step forward for women’s health, removing barriers to critical health care for the over 27 million women who already benefit from it. 

Yet some bosses and politicians are using their own religiously-motivated opposition to birth control to take this benefit away from women.  Over 100 lawsuits have been filed in federal court challenging the ACA’s birth control coverage benefit.  

Politicians, too, continue attempts to allow bosses to impose their religious beliefs on women and their families, denying women access to critical health care coverage, and interfering with a woman’s right to make personal health care decisions.

The National Women’s Law Center strongly supports the birth control coverage benefit and opposes these attempts to allow bosses to use religion to discriminate.  A boss’s religious belief should not trump women’s health and access to the health care they need.

Challenges in Court 

• Status of the Lawsuits Challenging the Affordable Care Act’s No Cost-Sharing Birth Control Coverage Benefit
• Fact Sheet: What You Should Know About the Birth Control Coverage Benefit  and How Bosses Are Going to Court to Take it Away

At the Supreme Court

• Fact Sheet: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell: The Supreme Court Allows Some Closely-Held Corporations to Use Religion to Undermine Women’s Health and Equality
• Fact Sheet: An Overview of the Legal Issues in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialities
• NWLC Supreme Court Amicus Brief Supporting the Birth Control Coverage Benefit
• Fact Sheet: NWLC’s Amicus Brief in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties: The Birth Control Coverage Benefit Furthers Compelling Governmental Interests in Public Health and Gender Equality
• 23 Amicus Briefs Filed in Support of the Birth Control Coverage Benefit

In Other Federal Courts

• NWLC Circuit Court Amicus Briefs Supporting the Birth Control Coverage Benefit

Challenges in State and Federal Legislatures

• Fact Sheet: State Politicians Want Bosses to Make Women's Health Care Decisions
• Fact Sheet: The Rubio-Manchin Bill Would Allow Any Employer to Take Away Women’s Insurance Coverage of Contraception, Harming the Health of Women and Their Families
• Fact Sheet: The Rubio Bill Would Allow Any Employer to Take Away Women’s Insurance Coverage of Contraception, Harming the Health of Women and Their Families
• Fact Sheet: The Blunt Amendment Takes Away Access to Critical Health Insurance Coverage for Millions of Americans
• Letter: Organizational Sign On Letter to Senate: Oppose the Blunt Amendment

• Preventive Services, Including Contraceptive Coverage, Under the Health Care Law
• Fact Sheet: Covering Prescription Contraceptives In Employee Health Plans: How This Coverage Saves Money
• Fact Sheet: Title VII Requires Covered Employers to Provide Contraceptive Coverage
• Fact Sheet: Denying Contraception Harms Women
• Fact Sheet: Guaranteeing Contraceptive Coverage In All New Health Insurance Plans
• Timeline: Guaranteeing Coverage of Contraceptives, Past and Present
• Testimony: NWLC's Judy Waxman before the Institute of Medicine
• Polling: New Research Shows Yet Again That Americans Overwhelmingly Support Access to Affordable Birth Control