RH Reality Check: Has the Affordable Care Act’s Contraception Benefit Been Saved?

[Skidmore]

Legal analysis article, FYI and discussion.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/11/17/affordable-care-acts-contraception-benefit-saved/

Nina Pillard, as a professor at Georgetown Law School, argued that access to contraception and abortion is an important part of ensuring gender equality. As a litigator, she argued, and won, the critically important cases United States v. Virginia, which opened the Virginia Military Institute to women, and Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, which successfully defended the Family and Medical Leave Act against claims it was unconstitutional.

And in Priests For Life v. HHS, she authored the judicial opinion that might just save the contraception benefit in the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—a benefit long fought by religious conservatives opposed to the use of contraception and intent on blocking contraceptive access at every point.

snip..

That is what makes Pillard’s opinion in Priests for Life so important: not just the outcome that will inevitably be appealed, but the road map she drafted—a truth not lost on Obamacare opponents.

[Skidmore]

1. Kicking because I think this is important.