The Trump administration acknowledges that the law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, “does not provide protection for nonreligious, moral conscientious objections.” But, it said, Congress and the courts have long recognized the importance of respecting moral convictions as well as religious beliefs, in health care and other fields, and as an example it cited the exemption from military service available to certain “conscientious objectors.” And it noted that an early version of the First Amendment, proposed by James Madison, protected not only freedom of religion, but also “the full and equal rights of conscience.” In 2014, the Supreme Court struck down the contraceptive coverage mandate “as applied to closely held corporations” like Hobby Lobby, a for-profit chain of craft stores owned by members of a Christian family who object to certain methods of contraception on religious grounds. Trump Rule Could Deny Birth Control Coverage to Hundreds of Thousands of Women - By ROBERT PEARJUNE 1, 2017 WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has drafted a sweeping revision of the government’s contraception coverage mandate that could deny birth control benefits to hundreds of thousands of women who now receive them at no cost under the Affordable Care Act.
