Trump's war on birth control

Guardian - In just the first five months of this administration, the threats to contraception access have come one after another. Trump overturned protections for the millions of low-income people who rely on the Title X family planning program. He filled top Department of Health and Human Services spots with people who are committed to making birth control as inaccessible as possible.

Teresa Manning – who now helps lead the section of the department of Health and Human Services focused on family planning – has insisted that birth control doesn’t work and that the federal government shouldn’t be in the business of family planning, anyway. HHS secretary Tom Price, a vocal opponent of the Affordable Care Act’s birth control coverage provision, once derisively asked critics to “bring me one woman” who can’t afford birth control. (Journalists were quick to bring him many.)

So it was disturbing, but not at all surprising, to learn that the Trump administration is considering a rollback of the ACA contraception provision that would allow any company to use religion as a justification for denying birth control coverage to the women who work for them. One health law professor summarized the remarkably broad proposal like this: “If you don’t want to provide it, you don’t have to provide it.”