Biden administration scraps rules to expand birth control access [View all]

Source: Politico

12/23/2024 09:46 PM EST


The Biden administration is withdrawing a proposed set of regulations that aimed to improve access to contraception by narrowing the ability of employers to opt out of covering birth control for their employees. The Department of Health and Human Services said in a notice in the Federal Register Monday that it was rescinding the regulations, which would have prohibited employers from claiming an exemption based on “non-religious moral objections” to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.

HHS said the administration was taking the action to “focus their time and resources on matters other than finalizing these rules” in the waning days of the Biden administration. Conservative organizations celebrated the news. In a post on X, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents an order of nuns that has repeatedly challenged the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate in court, wrote: “Christmas came a little early this year.”

The rules would have also created a workaround for employees of religious organizations that refuse to provide birth control coverage to still access it for free. It proposed that people who can’t access contraception through their employer could obtain it — at no charge — directly from a health care provider.

When it proposed the rule changes last year, the Biden administration estimated it would have helped about 130,000 more people become eligible for contraceptive coverage. “Now more than ever, access to and coverage of birth control is critical,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in January of 2023, adding that the rule “says to women across the country, we have your back.”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/23/biden-admin-birth-control-rule-00195979