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d R dot org. Bloomberg Lahos studing Grasso and Michael Best discuss how the Trump administrations move to let employers opt out of providing health insurance that covers birth control. They speak with Ash McGovern and Legislative and Policy director at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, and Michael sell Me, professor at George Washington
University Law School. The Trump administration has been issuing orders to try to provide more accommodations for religious people and the religious beliefs. What exactly did Attorney General Sessions do here and how broad is it? Well, the the initiatives that were announced on Friday are very broad. Uh. The one that's gotten the most attention is obviously the contraception mandate and the expansion of the current exemptions under the
Affordable Care Act. What the Trump administration is doing, and this is likely to spill over into many other areas as well, But which respect of this particular issue. They are allowing any corporate entity, any employer, to claim a religious exemption under the Affordable Care Acts so that they do not have to provide contraception as part of their
insurance plan. Currently, under the current law, religious entities, you know, churches, are exempt, and then nonprofit organizations and closely held corporations also have a workaround in that they do not have to provide the contraception directly, but instead they would have to provide it through insurance companies. That work around would now be optional under the current plan under the Trump administration, proposal West not a proposal wanted to affect immediately, but
they are taking comments now. It's an interim final rule and the exemption would be available to any other employer who was covered by the mandate. ASH. Let's talk about the federal government not prosecuting religious organizations for discrimination and the hiring and firing of employees, and does that extend
now to private businesses? Sure? So, on Friday there was both a contraceptive roles and then there was a second memo that came out from the Department of Justice, which essentially issued twelve Principles of Federal Religious Freedom and Religious
Liberty that all federal agents now must follow. I'm considering any program, rule or guidance, and what the Department of Justice is really trying to do and the Trump administration has been trying to do, is to train enforcements of non discrimination and civil rights protection as discrimination against religious rights and groups. And what's both concerning about this guidance is the fact that it's trying to give religious liberty
supremacy over other co equal fundamental rights. It's creating a more dangerous situations for already vulnerable communities like women, people of color, and LGBT communities, while elevating and sort of tipping the sum on the scale towards religious liberty at the extent of other important fundamental rights in my constitution.
That's Ash McGovern and Legislative and Policy director at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School, and Michael sell Me, professor of law at George Washington University Law School, speaking with Bloomberg, Laho Studing Grosso and Michael Best. You can listen to Bloomberg Law weekdays at one pm Wall Street time here on Bloomberg Radio