The Biden administration quietly withdrew a proposal to reduce the ability of employers to opt-out of covering birth control for employees on Monday.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published notice in the Federal Register on Monday that the agency is pulling back its proposed regulations to bar employers from being excused from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraceptive mandate on the grounds of “non-religious moral objections.” The agency said that it chose to withdraw the proposed regulations to “focus their time and resources on matters other than finalizing these rules” as the Biden administration draws to a close.
The decision to rescind the regulations means that the first Trump administration’s 2018 rules — which essentially allow any employer that objects to covering birth control to opt-out of the ACA mandate — will remain in place, according to Politico. The Trump-era rules have enabled insurers and health insurance plans to cut out contraceptive coverage for employers and private universities that object.
The Biden administration projected that its now-nixed proposals would have resulted in about 130,000 additional people being eligible for birth control coverage, according to Politico. The Biden regulations also would have allowed for employees working for objecting religious employers to still receive free birth control directly from a health care company.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, an organization that represented the Little Sisters of the Poor in lawsuits against the ACA’s contraception mandate, addressed HHS’ decision to rescind the regulations in a series of Tuesday posts to X, formerly Twitter.
“In 2011, the federal government told this group of nuns to park their convictions at the entrance of the public square or be on the hook for millions of dollars in fines. For the Sisters, that wasn’t much of a choice, so they fought back in court,” the Becket Fund wrote. “With the help of Becket, they defeated the federal government at [the Supreme Court], not once, but twice and are still in court defending their ministry against a group of states led by California and Pennsylvania.”
“Those court battles have been on ice for years due to the new Contraceptive Mandate rule the Biden Administration kept promising to issue,” the statement continues. “As mentioned, the new rule will not be issued, which will hopefully thaw the states’ cases against them, leading to a final victory for nuns whose sole mission is to care for the elderly dying until God calls them home.”
HHS did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Featured Image Credit: The White House
