Birth Control Refusal

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.” Read more »

Earlier this month, we told you about a bill introduced in the Alabama House of Representatives that would let bosses use their religion to discriminate against female employees and make decisions about their reproductive health care. Unfortunately, the House passed H.B. 108 last week, and it is scheduled for a public hearing in the Senate today at 11:30 a.m. Read more »

Alabama politicians will be voting on whether to allow your boss to make your reproductive health care decisions. H.B. 108 was introduced just last week and voted out of committee yesterday without a public hearing. It’s moving to the House floor for a vote as early as today. Alabama politicians want to allow bosses to use their religion to discriminate against the 637,666 Alabama women who get health insurance through their job or their spouse’s job.

(For a flavor of the kinds of bosses who claim their religious beliefs should dictate what medical care someone can receive, check out Jezebel’s recent examination of the businesses in the 18 for-profit cases against the federal contraceptive coverage benefit.)

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Lately, it seems that Texas lawmakers can’t pass up any opportunity to deny women health care. In 2011, they cut funding for birth control services by two-thirds, forcing 53 clinics that provided those services to close. Then, they turned down $30 million in federal money that would have provided contraception and cancer screening to low income women, rather than allow Planned Parenthood to participate in the program. And now, a representative in the Texas House has proposed a bill that would give a tax break to companies that refuse to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees. Read more »

Last week at a lunch with African advocates for women’s rights, we discussed pregnancy rates in Africa and the United States. Across the continents one thing remained constant—women have better outcomes when they are able to control their fertility. They enjoy greater freedom to pursue academic studies or careers, and to plan their lives as they see fit.

The ACA’s contraceptive coverage rule affords 47 million women this freedom by ensuring that they will be able to access birth control and related information through private insurance without having to worry about the cost. While many celebrate the anticipated improvements to women and children’s health, others are infuriated by the rule.

Opponents to birth control have made speeches decrying the rule, hosted conferences and brought lawsuit, after lawsuit, after lawsuit... Since the lawsuits have proved to be a publicity-gaining tool, we can anticipate many more. Read more »

Picking up where Leila left off, let’s look at how far bosses’ take their license to discriminate. Consider a world in which our boss decides whether our decisions are morally or religiously “clean” enough for him. You may think this is a thing of the past or that employers only have objections to covering birth control in health insurance. The following are real life examples of bosses exercising their “religious freedom”—can you guess the years in which they happened?

1. A school fired a fourth-grade teacher for asking for maternity leave based on the employer’s belief that she should not have become pregnant outside of marriage. According to court documents, the school administrator told her “there are consequences for disobeying the word of God.”  
2. A chain of banks refused to cover health insurance for dependents of a single mother or a married woman because, according to a former employee, the boss believes it is “a man’s responsibility to provide for his family.”

As you may have heard, Hobby Lobby is suing the federal government because its owner believes that the HHS rule requiring health insurance coverage of birth control violates his religious freedom. There have been a whole series of reactions to the lawsuit, including one led by pastors protesting Hobby Lobby’s decision to sue. Then there’s The Oklahoman newspaper’s reaction, in which its editorial board recently came out in support of the owners’ lawsuit, calling it a “powerful voice in fight against Obamacare mandate.”

In the editorial, the board dismissed a point I had made to an Oklahoman reporter, where I explained that it is a slippery slope to allow employers to opt out of generally applicable rules because of his or her own moral or religious objection to such rules. While people may balk at the requirement to cover the “oh-so-controversial” health care item known as birth control, how would people feel if an employer refused to cover children immunizations?

Well, the editorial board took my point and said it supported theirs. They theorized that because people have the right to refuse a vaccine, bosses should have the right to refuse to cover vaccines in their company’s health insurance. And here is the impasse we are facing. Read more »

Attacks on contraception have been all over the news lately — from attempts to defund federal and state family planning programs and providers like Planned Parenthood to efforts to block the health care law's coverage of contraception with no-copays or deductibles. It's shocking that more than 50 years after the birth control pill was approved, we're fighting to ensure that women don't lose access to it. Another startling front in the contraception battle? When you go to a pharmacy to get your contraception, you might be denied.

Women in at least 24 states report that their pharmacists have denied them access to birth control. Watch our new video and tell your leaders: My Health is NOT Up for Debate™!

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Thanks to everyone who participated in yesterday’s tweet chat with Sandra Fluke, National Women’s Law Center, and Law Student’s for Reproductive Justice! And yes, when I say everyone I even want to thank the people who were on who didn’t have the nicest things to say.

Everyone who contributed questions and were supportive- you all are amazing! A lot of really great questions were asked that drove an interesting and informative conversation. We had questions about the accommodation, what actions students can take on their campuses to ensure coverage as soon as possible, and specific questions about what preventive services are covered.

I’m very excited for a tweetchat that’s happening this afternoon at 3pm ET with Sandra Fluke, National Women's Law Center, and Law Students for Reproductive Justice! Follow the conversation at #CCEduChat.

This chat comes from the realization that a lot of students and employees of universities had questions about their contraceptive coverage under the health care law. There’s a section of the law that requires all new and non-grandfathered private insurance plans to cover a wide range of preventive services, including services such as mammograms, pap smears, smoking prevention and contraceptives without co-payments or other cost sharing requirements. The Administration even proposed an accommodation that would enable religiously-affiliated organizations beyond churches – such as universities and hospitals - to avoid directly providing contraceptive coverage if it was against their religion, but would ensure that all women are guaranteed coverage of this critical service without cost sharing. Read more »