TRUMP ADMINISTRATION THREATENS CONTRACEPTIVE COVERAGE
June 10, 2017
Estelle Griswold, executive director of Planned Parenthood, stands outside the center in April, 1963. Photo credit: Lee Lockwood/Wikimedia Commons(CCO 1.0)
This week the 52nd anniversary of Griswold v Connecticut, a landmark Supreme Court ruling in women’s reproductive rights, quietly came and went.
The 1965 decision legalized usage of contraceptives for married couples in the state of Connecticut, although the same freedom would not be extended to unmarried women until 1972. At the time of the ruling, 24 states still prohibited the sale of contraceptives.
Under the Comstock Law, a federal act passed in 1873, contraceptives were defined as “obscene material.” This made it a federal offense to distribute them through the US Postal Service.
Birth control is back in the spotlight as the Trump administration seeks to pass a new regulation that would give vastly more freedom to employers and insurers to drop contraception from their health plans.
The Affordable Care Act currently allows religious organizations and private companies to refuse contraceptive coverage to employees, but under the proposed new policy, this exemption would expand to all businesses — including those publicly traded. Any company or insurer would effectively be able to cite a conflict with their “religious beliefs and moral convictions,” the legal definitions of which are incredibly vague.
