Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey sued President Donald Trump’s administration Friday over new regulations which would allow employers to deny their employees contraceptive health coverage on religious or moral grounds.
The Trump administration nullified the Affordable Care Act requirement which stated employers must include birth control in their health insurance coverage by issuing two Interim Final Rules, which bypass debate and take effect immediately, according to the official complaint filed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Healey filed a complaint against these regulations just hours after they were issued, arguing they violate the Administrative Procedure Act, Establishment Clause in the First Amendment and Equal Protection guaranteed in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, according to the complaint.
“The Trump administration’s actions today are a direct attack on women’s health and the right to access affordable and reliable contraception,” Healey said in a statement in a press release.
Healey said her office will continue to fight for better health care and women’s rights.
“I sued the Trump administration today to stop this rule and defend critical protections for millions of women in Massachusetts and across the country,” Healey said in the release.
Renée Landers, a Suffolk University law professor, said the way Trump ignored standard legal process to pass the regulations is questionable and Healey may have a case in accusing the Trump administration of violating administrative procedure.
“It’s not clear in this situation why it was necessary to use interim final rulemaking instead of going through a whole rulemaking process to change the rule and allowing the comment process to take place before instituting the new regulation,” Landers said.
Landers said Trump probably feared his new law would not get passed under normal circumstances.
“It’s possible that a court would send this new regulation back to say that they have to use the standard rulemaking process,” Landers said.
Landers also wrote in an email that the new healthcare rules face a challenge in the established beneficial effects of birth control coverage.
“The Trump administration will have to overcome the factual record supporting the prior regulation requiring coverage for contraceptives because of the positive impacts on women’s health as well as preventing unplanned pregnancy,” Landers wrote.
Tricia Wajda, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts spokesperson, wrote in an email to The Daily Free Press that the ACA has helped millions of women access contraception.
“Because of the Affordable Care Act, 62 million women — including 1.4 million in Massachusetts — now have access to no co-pay preventive care, including contraception,” Wajda wrote.
She also wrote that the new healthcare coverage regulations could have far-reaching effects in Massachusetts and across the nation.
“This new set of rules opens the door for any organization, company or university to deny insurance coverage for birth control for any reason,” Wajda wrote. “Almost 60% of insured Massachusetts residents are covered through an employer-sponsored plan and are therefore vulnerable to lose no-copay coverage under this regulation.”
Regardless of the outcome of Healey’s lawsuit, Massachusetts legislators are taking actions to protect birth control coverage across the state. Many Massachusetts senators have sponsored an Act Relative to Advancing Contraceptive Coverage and Economic Security in Massachusetts, Jennifer Childs-Roshak, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts wrote in an email to The Daily Free Press.
“The ACCESS bill would guarantee insurance coverage with no out-of-pocket costs for all FDA-approved methods of birth control,” Childs-Roshak wrote.
Several Boston residents voiced support for Healey and spoke to the importance of birth control coverage.
Alexa Burrows, 25, of Fenway, conveyed her own concern for how the new governmental regulations on contraceptive coverage could affect her.
“I just ran out and got an IUD on Friday, because I was like ‘I don’t know if this is going to go away, I don’t know if my health insurance is going to cover this in the future, so I’m just going to get it done now, just in case anything happens,’” Burrows said. “It’s sad that you have to do that but it’s true.”
Josu Bernal, 27, of Back Bay, said birth control should be a government health care addition because many cannot afford contraceptives.
“It’s a very important issue that, in the long term, is going to be more costly to the public healthcare than the individual,” Bernal said.
Shantal Gonzalo, 23, of Fenway, pointed out that birth control is a necessity for lower-income families who can’t afford to raise any more children.
“A lot of people don’t have the access to birth control … so why shouldn’t they have the support of the state?” Gonzalo said. “When they probably don’t have the capacity of having a child, then why shouldn’t they be protected?”
Jennifer Small is a junior in the Boston University College of Communication, majoring in journalism and minoring in media science. She is one of the Co-Campus News Editors for Spring 2023.
If a company opts not to include birth control as part of its health care offering, shouldn’t it also be required to exclude coverage for vasectomies? Just asking …