MO Attorney General Won’t Appeal Ruling Striking Down an Exemption to the Contraceptive Coverage Requirement

Score one for sanity! Last Thursday, the Missouri Attorney General announced that he will not appeal a federal court ruling that struck down a Missouri law that would have required insurance issuers to issue polices without contraceptive coverage to employers who claim that birth control violates their “moral, ethical or religious beliefs.”

The law directly conflicted with the federal health care law’s contraceptive coverage requirement, which requires all new health insurance plans to cover contraceptives with no co-pay. In his announcement, the Attorney General aptly stated, “the attempt to deny contraceptive coverage to women in Missouri is just plain foolishness” and “cannot be supported by case law or sound policy.” However, he did ask that the judge amend the ruling to clarify that the federal exemptions from the contraceptive coverage requirement for religious employers would also apply in Missouri.

Stay tuned, though. There may still be an appeal if the judge in the case grants a request from Our Lady’s Inn, a St. Louis area nonprofit, to intervene.