Abortion-rights advocates blasted an ongoing federal investigation into New Jersey’s requirement that health insurers cover abortion, warning that it undermines state autonomy and is part of a broader effort to enact a federal backdoor ban on abortion.
Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat, convened a virtual roundtable of advocates Tuesday to discuss the probe they deemed “bogus,” ahead of a looming deadline the feds set for the state to respond to investigators’ demands for data. The deadline, originally set for Wednesday, is now May 8.
Pallone called the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ investigation into New Jersey and 12 other states that require insurers to cover abortion “a solution in search of a problem.”
“We don’t have any reason to believe that there’s any insurance company in New Jersey that doesn’t want to cover abortion,” he said. “No one is saying that.”
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State legislators mandated such coverage in 2022 as part of a broader effort to strengthen reproductive rights in New Jersey after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that established a federal right to abortion.
In that decision, known as Dobbs, the justices booted policymaking on abortion to the states. But Pallone said President Donald Trump and Republican extremists have ignored that directive authorizing states to regulate abortion as they see fit and instead use investigations to punish states that fail to follow their anti-abortion agenda.
“We have no intention of supporting this rogue investigation by HHS and the Trump administration,” Pallone said.
Katie O’Connor, senior director of federal abortion policy at the National Women’s Law Center, cited Trump’s frequent promises during his 2024 campaign to leave abortion policy to the states.
“Just over one year into his second term, it’s clear that that was a lie,” O’Connor said.
She offered a long list of ways Trump and his administration have restricted abortion access, including pardoning 23 abortion critics who blockaded abortion clinics, limiting enforcement of a federal law meant to protect abortion patients and providers, cutting abortion care for veterans, ordering a review of abortion medication and trying to restrict its access, and cutting funding for Planned Parenthood.
“The President has consistently used his office to impede access to abortion care,” O’Connor said. “The investigations into New Jersey and 12 other states are an extraordinary federal intervention into state policymaking and a blatant threat to state autonomy. They also, honestly, follow this administration’s agenda of targeting states it considers its adversaries.”
O’Connor urged federal lawmakers to drop the Weldon Amendment, the federal “conscience” law under which the Trump administration launched its investigation of states that mandate insurance coverage for abortion. That amendment shields health care workers and institutions that receive federal funding from penalties if they refuse to provide abortion, refer patients, or pay for or cover abortions. It has been part of the annual appropriations bill for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education since 2005.
“Congress can eliminate and should eliminate the Weldon Amendment in this year’s appropriations bill to prevent this administration from continuing to use it as a tool in its revenge tour against blue states,” O’Connor said.
Such a change seems unlikely in Washington, D.C., where Republicans control both the House and Senate. But that makes the coming midterms — when Trump’s critics hope voters will elect enough Democrats to flip both chambers — especially important, Pallone said.
“The bottom line is that right now, because the Democrats in the House and the Senate are in the minority, we don’t have the ability to call hearings, to subpoena witnesses,” and to otherwise act to challenge Trump’s antiabortion agenda, Pallone said.
When the Trump administration announced its probe of states’ abortion insurance mandates, it said the Weldon Amendment “protects Americans’ conscience rights.”
“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,” said Paula M. Stannard, director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill last month called the feds’ investigation “a fishing expedition wasting taxpayers’ money” and vowed to protect abortion access in New Jersey.
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