D.C. – President Donald Trump's administration announced Friday its intention to remove from Obamacare the Health and Human Services mandate requiring companies to provide health insurance that pays for contraception and abortion-inducing drugs.
Five years ago, a coalition known as "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" held rallies opposing the Obama Administration's HHS mandate.
“The First Amendment’s historic safeguard of our most basic freedoms has now been vindicated. We stood up for First Amendment and demanded that all our health care laws respect religious freedom," said Eric Scheidler, head of Pro-Life Action League and co-director of the coalition said in a statement Friday.
"Today, we see the fruit of that labor as a result of hundreds of thousands of protesters who participated in Stand Up for Religious Freedom rallies across the country.”
Friday, the Trump administration announced plans to allow any employer or insurance provider to opt out of paying for coverage of contraception or abortion-inducing drugs “based on its sincerely held religious beliefs.”
UPDATE: Democrats were outraged with this development. Xochitl Hinojosa, Communications Director for the Democratic National Committee, sent out the following email in response:
This week looks more like 1917 than 2017 for women across the country. First, House Republicans passed a bill that would ban all abortions after 20 weeks. And today, the Trump administration announced that they're rolling back a mandate requiring employer-provided health insurance to cover contraception — a rule that has helped at least 55 million women across the country access care.
Let's be clear: This is a direct assault on women's rights by Republicans.
From the moment they took office, Republicans have done everything they can to undermine women's rights — from imposing the global gag rule, which blocks any foreign aid to organizations that even mention abortion, to trying to defund Planned Parenthood every chance they get.
Instead of writing off more than half of our country, maybe Republicans could actually do something to help women. Just a thought.
