Religious Exemptions

Although the Blunt Amendment failed, the attacks on women’s access to contraception are far from over. Yesterday in New Hampshire, GOP state representatives voted to take away the contraceptive coverage protections that women and families in New Hampshire have relied on for years.

Since 2000, New Hampshire has had a contraceptive equity law. This law ensures that all insurance plans cover FDA approved contraceptives to the same extent as other prescriptions. The law also ensures that consultations, examinations, and medical services related to contraception provided on an outpatient basis are covered to the same extent as other outpatient services. New Hampshire’s contraceptive equity law was passed with bipartisan support by a Republican legislature and a Democratic governor. It was enacted without a religious employer exemption—a measure that even religious leaders did not protest at the time. And, in the past twelve years, there has been no attempt to challenge or amend the law…until now.

Yesterday, the New Hampshire House said “yes” to a measure that will greatly undermine women’s access to preventative care by adding a religious employer exemption to the state’s contraceptive equity law. And to add insult to injury, the proposed exemption is extremely broad and undefined. It would allow any employer to remove a woman’s existing contraceptive coverage if the employer has a religious objection to contraception. Read more »

Last February, the Department of Health and Human Services released an interim final rule stating that student health plans would be treated as individual health insurance plans, meaning that they would have to cover the women’s preventive health services. Let’s translate that out of “legal-ese:” the Department will require student health insurance plans (not student health centers) to cover preventive services for women, such as contraception, screening for sexually transmitted infections, and screening for interpersonal and domestic violence, without co-pays or deductibles. Read more »

Here’s to a new year.

Arriving at the National Women’s Law Center three months ago, I never anticipated just how sustained and systemic the efforts to dismantle women’s health and reproductive rights had become.  Sure, I had paid attention to the Planned Parenthood defunding fight (which included the “trade” for a ban on DC funding of abortion services and the “this is not meant to be a factual statement” debacle) and had heard about HR 3 and the disgusting “forcible rape” debate. Indeed, it was those events that informed my decision to work on reproductive rights issues full time. But even though I was aware of what was going on, it was only when I became involved with the issues on a daily basis where I gained a whole new perspective on just how far those who oppose reproductive rights are going in order to completely unravel women’s rights. And it got me thinking, if so many bad things can happen in just my three months here, what will 2012 look like?

So in order to be prepared for this year, I decided to give a quick review of my first three months – a recap of the numerous anti-choice measures that cropped up in just the final months of 2011. Because when you lay it all out, you can’t ignore how serious these efforts really are.

In my very first week, the House of Representatives voted on HR 358, which literally would allow women to die at hospitals instead of getting the emergency care they need if it included abortion care. Seriously? Read more »