he administration warned California earlier this year that it could lose federal funding over a 2014 regulation mandating that employers and private insurance plans pay for abortions.
The Department of Health and Human Services determined that the state was violating a federal antidiscrimination law, known as the Weldon Amendment, that protects insurers from being forced to provide abortion coverage, the department said in a statement.
HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in the statement that California had violated federal conscience laws and refused to take corrective action. “So we are now taking action to hold them to account,” he said.
T> he Office of Civil Rights, a division of the Health and Human Services department, initially investigated California based on complaints filed by a Catholic order of religious sisters and a nonprofit Christian church that objected to “paying for elective abortion insurance for themselves and their colleagues,” the statement said.
The incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden could reverse the decision. Biden has nominated California’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, a supporter of abortion rights, to head the Health and Human Services agency.
