Attorney General Becerra Prepares to Defend Nationwide Injunction Protecting Access to Birth Control after Appeal by Trump Administration

AG Becerra successfully secured the nationwide injunction in December 2017

SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra today issued the following statement in response to the defendants’ decision to appeal California’s nationwide injunction that protects women’s access to birth control. The appeal seeks to revive the Trump Administration’s illegal regulations giving corporations and employers the power to deny hundreds of thousands of women access to birth control coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

“This rule unjustly targets women, allowing employers to deny them healthcare coverage," said Attorney General Becerra. “The Affordable Care Act guarantees that women are not burdened with high costs for seeking basic healthcare, including birth control. The law couldn’t be more clear: a woman, not her boss and certainly not a politician, should decide what’s best for her own healthcare.” 

In October 2017, Attorney General Becerra filed a lawsuit, State of California v. Health and Human Services et al, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, challenging the Trump Administration’s federal contraceptive rules that allow employers to discriminate against female employees. The Attorneys General of Delaware, Maryland, New York and Virginia joined the lawsuit. Pennsylvania filed a similar lawsuit, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, v. Trump, et al, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In December 2017, the federal courts in both Pennsylvania and California granted injunctions that block the Trump Administration’s flawed rules denying contraception coverage. 

Today, the Trump Administration joined two other defendants in appealing California’s injunction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.