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The Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday that it is opening investigations into 13 states over alleged violations of a federal law that protects health care providers who refuse to participate in abortions for religious or moral reasons.
HHS officials said the agency’s Office for Civil Rights will examine whether the states violated the Weldon Amendment, a provision enacted in 2005 that prohibits state or local governments receiving federal funds from discriminating against health care entities that decline to cover, pay for, refer for, or provide abortions.
“OCR launches these investigations to address certain states’ alleged disregard of, or confusion about, compliance with the Weldon Amendment,” Paula Stannard, director of the Office for Civil Rights, said in a statement.
“Under the Weldon Amendment, health care entities, such as health insurance issuers and health plans, are protected from state discrimination for not paying for, or providing coverage of, abortion contrary to conscience. Period.”
During a press call, an HHS official said the provision was originally adopted because of concerns that state and local governments were pressuring medical providers and insurers to participate in abortion services despite religious or moral objections.
The states under investigation are California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. HHS said each state will have 20 days to respond to letters notifying them of the investigation.
Officials said the inquiries were not triggered by new complaints from those states. They suggested that the lack of complaints may be linked to actions taken by the previous administration.
In 2021, the Biden administration withdrew a notice of violation issued to California during the previous Trump administration. At the time, HHS said the definition of “health care entity” under the Weldon Amendment should be interpreted more narrowly, excluding churches and other religious organizations.
Current HHS officials said they are rejecting that interpretation.
“We believe that it reflected an unduly narrow reading of the statute. We also disavowed downstream impacts of the legal position taken in 2021, which imposed certain requirements on complainants of protected parties that were not grounded in the state statute,” an HHS official said.
“And by publicly repudiating that 2021 letter, we informed states and other entities, including those protected by this by the Weldon amendment, that they should no longer rely on this now repeated legal position.”