After Pa. sued, judge halts rules to limit free birth control

accept public comments on them beforenew rules can go into effect.

California, Washington and Massachusetts have also sued the Trump administration over the rules. Delaware, Maryland, New York and Virginia joined California in its effort.

Judge Beetlestone, appointed to the bench by Mr. Obama, called the Trump administration’s exemptions “sweeping” and said they were the “proverbial exception that swallows the rule.”

She was particularly critical of the power to object on moral grounds, saying it “conjured up a world where a government entity is empowered to impose its own version of morality on each one of us. That cannot be right.”

Susan Frietsche, senior staff attorney from the Pittsburghbased Women’s Law Project, said Friday’s ruling was “very wellgrounded in firmly established law. This isn’t a ruling you’d characterize as novel or adventurous.”

She said the opinion was “plainspoken in its criticism of the government’s failure to follow established procedures, and very direct about the fact that the failure was not harmless. ... We have an unplanned pregnancy rate in Pennsylvania that is higher than the national average, so of course depriving women of no-cost contraception will inflict enormous harm.”

The ruling encouraged Mr. Shapiro, who said he believes the judge’s injunction is a sign “that we are likely to succeed on the merits of the case when it is finally addressed in the court.”

“This is just the first step, but today is a critical victory for millions of women and families and for the rule of the law,” Mr. Shapiro said. “The harm from this rule was immediate. Women need contraception for their health, because contraception is medicine, pure and simple.”