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Statement from APHA Executive Director Georges C. Benjamin, MD, on Supreme Court decision in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania

Date: Jul 08 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media Relations  

Today’s Supreme Court ruling allowing employers to cut off access to affordable birth control coverage is a devastating blow to women’s health and their right to make their own reproductive health decisions. Letting nearly any employer or university deny contraceptive coverage to workers and students will seriously harm tens of thousands of women and their families.

Employers shouldn’t be allowed to use their religion or moral beliefs to discriminate and single out certain health care services for special treatment. Contraception is core to women’s health and quality of life and foundational to their economic equality and opportunity. And with so much more economic hardship on the horizon due to COVID-19, losing contraception coverage could force many women to forgo this critical part of their health care.

When the Affordable Care Act required contraception coverage without cost-sharing, it expanded access to millions of women. Letting employers cut off that access now and insert themselves into the health decisions of their women employees is discriminatory and wrong.

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