Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) and some of New Jersey’s top abortion advocates are warning that recent actions by President Donald Trump’s administration could threaten the state’s famously liberal abortion laws.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s administration that it was “initiat[ing] a compliance review” of a New Jersey regulation requiring insurance plans to cover abortions. The letter included a demand for data on the mandate and its implementation, with the original deadline arriving today.
The Sherrill administration said that the deadline has since been pushed back to May 8, prolonging the issue further. Asked whether the administration intends to comply with the data request by the new deadline, a spokesperson simply referred back to Sherrill’s earlier comment decrying the Trump administration’s demands.
“Donald Trump’s latest ‘investigation’ is nothing but a fishing expedition wasting taxpayers’ money,” Sherrill said on March 19, when the investigation was first announced.
During a virtual roundtable yesterday, Pallone similarly denounced the investigation and said it represented another instance of the Trump administration attempting to interfere in state abortion regulations even after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision left those matters up to the states.
“This investigation is bogus,” Pallone said. “There isn’t any indication that any insurance company doesn’t want to provide abortion coverage.”
New Jersey has some of the most permissive abortion regulations in the country, especially after 2022’s Freedom of Reproductive Choice Act codified abortion access into state law and allowed the state Department of Banking and Insurance to issue the insurance provider mandate that’s now under scrutiny. It’s one of 13 states that HHS said last month it would investigate in the context of the Weldon Amendment, which prohibits discrimination against health care entities that refuse to provide or cover abortion services.
If Democrats retake control of the House this year, Pallone would be in line to once again chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over health care issues. Pallone said that from that perch, he’d be sure to bring in HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other top officials to testify on the administration’s abortion policies.
“One of the things that I would do as chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee is haul RFK in and say, ‘What are you doing? What is this investigation about? What are you doing with medication abortions? What are you doing with [the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act]?’”, Pallone said.
“We’re not going to stand for this idea that they can now interfere with what states want to do with their residents,” he added.
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