Supreme Court Lets Employers Opt Out of Providing Free Birth Control

The justices upheld regulations from the Trump administration that allowed employers with religious objections to decline to provide contraception coverage.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Trump administration regulation that lets employers with religious objections limit women’s access to free birth control under the Affordable Care Act.

As a consequence of the ruling, about 70,000 to 126,000 women could lose contraceptive coverage from their employers, according to government estimates.

The vote was 7 to 2, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissenting.

Contraception coverage has emerged as a key battleground in the culture wars, one in which successive administrations have switched sides.

In the Obama years, the court heard two cases on whether religious groups could refuse to comply with regulations requiring contraceptive coverage. The new case presented the opposite question: Can the Trump administration allow all sorts of employers with religious or moral objections to contraception to opt out of the coverage requirement?

In March 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, which includes a section that requires coverage of preventive health services and screenings for women. The next year, the Obama administration required employers and insurers to provide women with coverage at no cost for all methods of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration.