You have less than a week to submit a comment urging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to stop Trump’s interim rules allowing employers, universities, and insurers to deny birth control coverage if they claim a religious or moral objection.
HHS is trying to deter people from commenting by having separate comment drives for the moral objection and the religious objection.
Do not let them get away with this. Please write an individualized comment and submit it to both comment drives. After following the link, the button to comment is in the upper right hand corner.
Religious Exemption Comment Drive
We have a “moral objection” to entitled men telling us that our bodies, lives, and futures are beholden to their whims. Everyone, no matter where they work or go to school, deserves access to healthcare without discrimination. Yet, these interim rules clearly allow employers, universities, and insurers to impose their self-proclaimed religious and/or moral beliefs on their students, employees, and their families in order to deny basic healthcare–healthcare to which they have a legal right under the Affordable Care Act.
Not only are these rules discriminatory, they are harmful. Birth control has helped countless people prevent or delay pregnancy, allowing them to pursue educational opportunities, better plan their futures, advance in their careers, and achieve their desired family size. Birth control has also helped many people manage certain medical conditions.
Increasing access to birth control allows people to determine their healthcare needs with the advice of their physicians. The government should not allow an employer or a school to interfere with this relationship by denying insurance coverage for something as basic as birth control. Insurance companies should also not be given special permission to deny individuals the coverage they would otherwise be guaranteed under the law.
Take a moment to urge HHS to rescind the interim final rules that would result in the loss of seamless access to birth control coverage.