In the past 48 hours, the Trump Administration has rolled back the requirement that employers include birth control in their health insurance coverage, and it has ended transgender workplace protections. It is clear to the Heart of LA Democratic Club that these are more attempts to undo the progress of the Obama administration and pander to the religious Republican base. The casualties of this political self-interest are women and the LGBTQ community.
The Administration has stated that any employer (even universities and publicly traded companies) can deny birth control coverage over a religious OR moral objection. The removal of employer birth control requirements is a big hit to women's health insurance coverage. According to the statistics, 9 out of 10 women will use birth control at some point during their lifetimes, and women who were covered under the ACA saved $1.4 billion for birth control pills alone in 2013. The New York Times stated that due to the availability of birth control, The United States is experiencing the lowest rate of unintended pregnancy in 30 years, the lowest rate of pregnancy among teenagers ever and the lowest rate of abortion since Roe v. Wade was decided.
Cruelly, Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that civil rights law that prohibits gender discrimination in the workplace does not apply to transgender employees under Title VII. Some are rightly calling this a license to discriminate against transgender people in the workplace.
The bottom line: placating Trump's base and the extreme religious right is all that he and Sessions really care about. The damage to women's health, particularly to low wage earners, that will result from his proposed curtailment of birth control coverage, and the pain and suffering inflicted on the LGBTQ community by his latest actions, is of absolutely no concern to him.
What You Can Do: Though "Trump exhaustion" is clearly setting in, we must stand strong and continue to make our voices heard. We must continue to resist Trump's effort to turn the clock back and to reverse our hard-fought gains. Call your elected representatives and demand that they do everything in their power to block Trump's latest actions. Continue working to flip the Republican Districts and provide support, if you can, to the multiple legal organizations committed to battling Trump's retrogressive agenda.