The Trump administration is investigating states that mandate health insurance coverage for abortion

The Trump administration said Thursday it has begun investigations into 13 states that require state-regulated health insurance plans to cover abortions.

The investigations are the latest in a long-running dispute between political parties over how to interpret a provision known as the Weldon Amendment, which is included in federal spending bills every year. It prevents states from discriminating against health entities that do not provide, cover, or refer to abortion.

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When Democrat Joe Biden was president, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights said the provision did not relate to employers or other health care sponsors. The Trump administration said this year it was doing so.

The administration says that would likely put states with abortion coverage requirements in violation of the law, because they might not allow employers or other health care providers to opt out. She said she was sending messages to collect more information from those countries.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights launched the investigations “to address some states’ alleged neglect of, or confusion over, compliance with the Weldon Amendment,” Office Director Paula M. Stannard 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 abortion or providing coverage for it contrary to conscience, period,” Stannard said.

States with coverage requirements are California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. All but Vermont have Democratic governors.

New Jersey Governor Mickey Sherrill said in a statement on Thursday that she would defend her state’s policies.

“New Jersey requires that health insurance plans follow all applicable laws, including protecting women’s reproductive freedom. So Donald Trump’s latest ‘investigation’ is nothing more than a fishing expedition that wastes taxpayer dollars,” she said.

The Weldon Amendment is one of a series of provisions known as conscience laws, which provide legal protections for individuals and health care entities who choose not to provide abortions or other types of care because of religious or moral objections.

In the years since its passage in 2005, there has been a “partisan swing” in how broadly or narrowly it can be interpreted depending on which party is in power, according to Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis.

The fact that employers and plan sponsors between health care entities are not mentioned in the text of the Weldon Amendment could give Democrats an advantage in their interpretation, but the issue has not yet been resolved in court, Ziegler said.

The Heritage Foundation’s massive policy proposal known as Project 2025 calls for the incoming Trump administration to withhold Medicaid funding from states found to be violating the Weldon Amendment, said Elizabeth Sieber, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

“What we are seeing here is the fulfillment of a promise to the religious right,” she said.

President Donald Trump’s first administration moved in 2020 to withhold federal health care funding for California over what it interpreted as a violation of the Weldon Amendment, but the Biden administration took office the following year and reversed the decision.