Cortez Masto Fights for Women's Reproductive Health Care

Press Release

U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) joined 34 colleagues in cosponsoring the Protect Access to Birth Control Act, which would make rules to ensure employers or schools cannot deny health care coverage, including birth control, to employees due to a religious or moral reasoning.

"It's outrageous that women's access to reproductive health care has been under constant fire by the Trump administration since day one. The recent Supreme Court decision is yet another declaration that President Trump and his allies are relentless in pursuing anti-women policies that tell women in Nevada they cannot decide for themselves on their own health decisions. I'm proud to join my congressional colleagues in promoting legislation that expresses loud and clear that reproductive health care decisions should be made by a woman and her doctor, not her boss, and certainly not men in Washington."

BACKGROUND:

On July 8, 2020 in Pennsylvania v. Trump/Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court upheld the authority under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of the Trump Administration to issue rules around employer-sponsored coverage of birth control that allow virtually any employer or school to assert a religious or moral objection to offering health care coverage that includes birth control. The rules do not require an accommodation for employees to ensure women can get access to birth control. The decision orders the Third Circuit to lift the nationwide injunction, but does leave open the possibility for more litigation on the rules.

During the 115th Congress, Senator Cortez Masto cosponsored the introduction of the Protect Access to Birth Control Act in response to the Trump administration's interim final rules that allow companies to interfere in their employee's health care choices and force women to pay more for an essential part of their health care.

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