Requiring HIV Prevention Care Violates Employer Religious Rights: Judge

A Texas judge ruled on Wednesday that requiring companies to provide HIV prevention care violates employers' religious rights.

The judge "ruled against the Obamacare provision that requires employers to cover the HIV prevention drug PrEP," Politico health care reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein tweeted about the ruling, adding that the decision could undo all preventative care coverage requirements.

The lawsuit was originally filed by Braidwood Management Inc., which sought to challenge the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ruling on Wednesday comes years after the lawsuit was initially filed in March 2020, with Braidwood alleging that the ACA's requirement to provide HIV preventative care, or prophylactic drugs, widely known as PrEP, violated its religious freedoms.

"Through the preventive-care mandates, ACA insurance policies must cover, among other things, PrEP drugs, the HPV vaccine, and screenings and behavioral counseling for STDs and drug use," the ruling said. "[The plaintiff] objects to those services on both religious and non-religious grounds, claiming they facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior, intravenous drug use, and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman."

"Second, the mandates force Braidwood to underwrite coverage for services to which it holds sincere religious objections," the ruling added. "This injury is distinct from the pocketbook injury Braidwood would incur in paying for the objectionable services."

Newsweek reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services, as it is the defendant in the lawsuit.

The judge continued in the ruling, "Defendants do not show a compelling interest in forcing private, religious corporations to cover PrEP drugs with no cost-sharing and no religious exemptions."

This is not the first time Judge O'Connor has ruled against the ACA, which was signed into law by former President Barack Obama. In 2018, O'Connor said that the ACA was unconstitutional after a group of 20 states, led by Texas, filed a lawsuit seeking to end the ACA, widely known as Obamacare.

Shortly after the ruling on Wednesday, a number of social media users shared their own thoughts, with many criticizing the decision.

"Let us be clear: PrEP is essential to combating the transmission of HIV and keeping the public healthy. Today's ruling from Texas is an example of every person becoming a law unto themself in the name of religion but for the sole purpose of subordinating gay men and trans women," Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, wrote on Twitter.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the former director of the Detroit Health Department, said, "How does providing medication to PREVENT HIV violate anyone's religious liberties? What version of faith stops you from...preventing illness?"