Washington AG files lawsuit against Trump for rollback of birth control mandate

Washington’s attorney general announced Monday he would sue President Trump’s administration over its rollback of an ObamaCare requirement that employers include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans.

“President Trump’s contraception rules are unfair, unlawful, and unconstitutional,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) said in a statement. “I refuse to let President Trump disregard our laws and our constitution in an effort to deny women access to contraception.”

{mosads}Ferguson says the new rules, announced last week by Trump administration officials, violate the First Amendment by “requiring individuals to bear the burdens of religions to which they do not belong,” as well as the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment.

The attorney general also says the new rules violate provisions of the Civil Rights Act.

“The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against women based on sex or the capacity to be pregnant,” the statement read. “The rules result in women having less access to reproductive health care, which is discrimination based on their gender.”

Ferguson filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and is seeking an injunction preventing the implementation of the new rules.

Last week, the Trump administration published the regulations, which allow for-profit or nonprofit employers or insurers to not follow ObamaCare’s birth control mandate on religious or moral grounds.

Ferguson became the second state attorney general to file a lawsuit against the new rules after California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D).