Donald Trump’s government has issued a ruling that allows employers to opt out of providing free birth control to millions of Americans.
The rule allows employers and insurers to decline to provide birth control if doing so violates their “religious beliefs” or “moral convictions”.
Fifty-five million women benefited from the Obama-era rule, which made companies provide free birth control.
As a candidate, Mr Trump had pledged to eliminate that requirement.
The mandate had been a key feature of so-called Obamacare – President Obama’s efforts to overhaul the US healthcare system.
It included a provision that permitted religious institutions to forego birth control coverage for their employees.
But the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Friday it was important to expand which organisations can opt out and deny free contraceptive coverage.
We should have space for organisations to live out their religious ideas and not face discrimination because of their religious ideas,” said one HHS official, who did not wish to be named.
The new rule, which is effective immediately, was criticised by women’s rights groups and Democrats in Congress.
The contraceptive coverage mandate had become a hotly contested legal battleground since Obamacare passed in 2009 – with the Democratic administration aggressively pushing back against attempts to carve out sweeping religious exemptions to the women’s health provisions of the law.
With Donald Trump now in charge, the dynamic has been turned on its head. Now the White House will be much more lenient in granting waivers, and Obamacare’s defenders are the ones turning to the courts for a remedy.
The move will be celebrated by religious groups and conservatives – a tangible benefit of their presidential victory last year.
There’s a risk of blowback outside the Republican Party’s evangelical base, however.
According to some estimates, the contraceptive mandate saved women $1.4bn in its first year in effect. The decision could deal a direct financial blow to women across the US – something they might remember when they head to the polls in 2018.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Protesters outside the Supreme Court in March when lawsuits were filed against the Obama-era rule
In announcing the rule change, HHS officials cited a study claiming that access to contraception encourages “risky sexual behaviour”.
The department disputes reports that millions of women may lose their birth control coverage if they are unable to pay for it themselves.
Source: BBC
