Trump administration to allow religious employers to deny birth control to their staff: report

President Donald Trump's administration is poised to kill the Affordable Care Act's "birth control mandate" that requires employers to offer birth control on their insurance, the New York Times reported.

Trump could deliver the new rules as early as Friday and put in jeopardy the free and low-cost birth control afforded to over 55 million people in the US.

The controversial mandate was at the heart of the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case when the religious employer argued that being required to provide birth control to their employees violated their religious freedom.

Such exceptions are the target of at least one of the rules, which "offers an exemption to any employer or insurer that objects to covering contraceptive services 'based on its sincerely held religious beliefs.'"

Trump's anti-abortion campaign promises appeared close to fulfillment in May, when he appointed a "birth control czar" that was a former lobbyist with the National Right to Live Committee and a legislative analyst for the Family Research Council, the Washington Post reported at the time.