California's mandatory abortion coverage rule responded to the efforts of two Catholic universities, Santa Clara University and Loyola Marymount University, which had sought health care plans that did not include elective abortion coverage. However, some faculty members objected to the exclusion of the coverage and their allies sought state intervention.
In August 2014 California's Department of Managed Health Care ruled that the plans must cover the procedure. A 1975 state health care law and the California constitution, it said, prohibits health plans "from discriminating against women who choose to terminate a pregnancy."
The insurers and the universities agreed to comply with the state's requirements, the Los Angeles Times reports. However, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Life Legal Defense Foundation and the Catholic Bishops of California filed several federal legal complaints against the rule. The complaints charged that the state rule discriminated against those who object to abortion.
The complaints cited the Weldon Amendment, first passed in 2005. It bars federal funds to state or local governments if they discriminate against institutional or individual healthcare entities that decline to pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions. The amendment defines healthcare entities as individual physicians or health care professionals, a hospital, "a health insurance plan, or any other kind of health care facility, organization or plan."
In response to the complaints, Jocelyn Samuels, director of the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said it "found no violation of the Weldon Amendment and is closing this matter without further action."
The civil rights office ruled that the complaining entities are not "healthcare entities" that object to abortion. The seven health insurance firms involved themselves have no objections to providing abortion coverage.