The Trump administration is warning California to stop enforcing its law obligating health insurers to cover abortions, saying that the state could face the loss of federal funding if it doesn’t comply.
California has 30 days to go along with the order, said Roger Severino, the director of the Office for Civil Rights within the Trump administration’s health agency. “They have every opportunity to do the right thing to be in compliance with the law,” he said.
The announcement was made Friday on the day of the March for Life, an annual anti-abortion rally. President Trump is set to be the first president in history to speak at the march in person. Trump has kept his promises to the anti-abortion movement, and they rank his reelection as their top priority this year.
As part of its latest actions to uphold its promises, the administration is accusing California of violating a rule attached to spending bills, called the Weldon Amendment, that says states and other government entities cannot discriminate against healthcare providers that don’t provide or pay for abortions if they receive federal funding.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra vowed on Twitter to “fight this by any means necessary.”
“The President & VP are once again attacking women’s health in order to grandstand at today’s anti-choice rally,” he wrote. “Make no mistake, this action against CA is just one more attempt to chip away at women’s rights & access to abortion.”
The President & VP are once again attacking women’s health in order to grandstand at today’s anti-choice rally.
Make no mistake, this action against CA is just one more attempt to chip away at women’s rights & access to abortion. https://t.co/8lJZVXdl3a
— Xavier Becerra (@AGBecerra) January 24, 2020
Severino warned states with similar laws would face similar actions, but he didn’t cite examples. Oregon, New York, and Washington state have similar laws obligating private insurers to pay for abortions.
Severino, who has made advancing religious liberty a priority in his role with the Trump administration, said that while people disagree about the legality of abortion in the United States, they tend to be united on the idea that people should not be forced to “participate, pay for, or cover abortions.”
“The state is not free to force people to pay for other people’s abortions,” he said in a phone call with reporters Friday.
The Missionary Guadalupanas of the Holy Spirit, a Catholic group, challenged the California law last year, but the three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeals threw out the lawsuit.
Severino likened the California case to another challenge from the Little Sisters of the Poor, an organization of nuns working with impoverished elderly adults that has opposed a federal rule saying employers must cover contraception. The Supreme Court is taking up that challenge for a third time and combining it with a challenge to exemptions the Trump administration created for religious liberty and moral objections.
“An overbearing government is trying to force nuns to assist in abortion coverage for other nuns,” Severino said. “Why can’t they just be left alone?”
