Employers Can Refuse Birth Control Coverage

July 8, 2020 — More than 70,000 U.S. women could be left without cost-free birth control after the Supreme Court upheld a Trump administration policy change that permits some employers to refuse to provide contraceptive coverage on religious or moral grounds.

Lower courts had previously blocked the administration’s changes to a requirement in the Affordable Care Act, but the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled 7-2 in favor of the administration, the Associated Press reported.

“We hold today that the Departments had the statutory authority to craft that exemption, as well as the contemporaneously issued moral exemption. We further hold that the rules promulgating these exemptions are free from procedural defects,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a majority of the court.