The Hill News

Another high-profile dust-up played out in the Senate last week over women’s health, when Sen. Roy Blunt (R.-MO) teed up a vote to allow employers or insurers to deny coverage for any “moral or religious” reason. As Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.) pointed out, although contraception coverage was the target, the amendment would have imperiled insurance coverage for cancer treatments, health screenings, obesity-related conditions, and virtually any other needed medical care.
 
As one in a long line of attacks on the Affordable Care Act, the Senate’s all-too-close defeat of the Blunt amendment has health advocates breathing a sigh of relief. But opponents of both contraception coverage and healthcare reform will doubtless resurrect this debate, like a dead horse they can’t stop beating, over the coming year.
 
And the fight isn’t limited to Congress. There are the lawsuits â€" six and counting â€" brought by a few far-right advocacy groups an! d one from seven state Attorneys General on legal and constitutional grounds against the rule. We recently published a comprehensive reply to opponents’ claims. Our overall conclusion? Despite the intensity on display, their arguments just don’t hold up.

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