Sarah Huckabee Sanders on ending Obamacare birth control mandate: ‘freedom to practice one’s faith is a fundamental right’
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders vowed that “as long as Donald Trump is president,” the administration will defend every American’s right to religious liberty.
“The President believes that the freedom to practice one’s faith is a fundamental right in this country,” Huckabee Sanders said Friday, when the Trump administration released new guidelines ending an Obamacare regulation forcing Catholic employers/evangelical groups to participate in the provision of birth control.
“I think all of us do,” Huckabee Sanders continued. “And that’s all that today was about. Our federal government should always protect that right, and as long as Donald Trump is President, he will.”
To close out last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ended the Obama administration’s controversial contraception mandate. It would have forced Catholic nuns like the Little Sisters of the Poor, whose mission explicitly involves upholding the dignity of every human life, to participate in the provision of their employees’ birth control and abortifacient drugs.
The Little Sisters of the Poor was attacked by NOW, a topic Ted Cruz brought up repeatedly during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
The new rules also protect organizations with a moral, not just religious, objection to contraception.
photo Kai Stachowiak
Washington’s attorney general announced Monday he would sue the Trump’s administration over the rollback.
“President Trump’s contraception rules are unfair, unlawful, and unconstitutional,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) said in a statement. “I refuse to let President Trump disregard our laws and our constitution in an effort to deny women access to contraception.”
“The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against women based on sex or the capacity to be pregnant,” the statement read. “The rules result in women having less access to reproductive health care, which is discrimination based on their gender.”
Ferguson filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and is seeking an injunction preventing the implementation of the new rules.
“President Trump’s shameful war on women rages on,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) in a statement. “By ending the birth control mandate, the President and his Administration are allowing employers to stand in the way of women accessing the healthcare that they and their doctors have deemed necessary.”
photo by Okan Caliskan via Pixabay
