14. Department of Health and Human Services · Notable
Remove Ella from the contraceptive mandate
Printed page 485 14. Department of Health and Human Services
“Eliminate the week-after-pill from the contraceptive mandate as a potential abortifacient. … HRSA should eliminate this potential abortifacient from the contraceptive mandate.”
What has happened
- Not started
Ella (ulipristal acetate) remains within the contraceptive coverage requirement. Federal Register full text since 2025-01-20 returns 0 documents for 'ulipristal' in any context and 0 for contraceptive combined with ulipristal; the only change to the HRSA-supported Guidelines in the window is the cervical cancer screening recommendation accepted on 2026-01-05. HHS's active regulatory agenda contains no contraceptive-mandate rulemaking, and the religious and moral exemption restoration the chapter asks for separately (#1344) has not happened either. HRSA's own Guidelines page was read on 2026-09-03 and answers this in terms: item **(17) emergency contraception (ulipristal acetate)** — that is Ella — remains in the enumerated full range that must be covered without cost sharing, alongside (16) levonorgestrel. The page's own stamp is "Date Last Reviewed: December 2025"; the guideline was reviewed in that month and updated on one point only, cervical cancer screening. Moved-the-other-way: a dated in-window Primary document on the ask's exact object, showing the object unchanged. **Dating note:** the HRSA page gives a month only, so the event and the citation take the Federal Register date of the guideline update, 2026-01-05.
- HRSA notice: Update to the Women's Preventive Services Guidelines (accepts the WPSI cervical-cancer-screening recommendation after public comment; records that HRSA has funded WPSI cooperative agreements since 2016 and that publishing a Federal Register notice for comment is standard practice)
- HRSA-supported Women's Preventive Services Guidelines — the enumerated contraceptive full range, item (14) condoms and item (17) emergency contraception (ulipristal acetate), and fertility awareness–based methods as instruction only and 'less effective' (Date Last Reviewed: December 2025)
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- This ask was also covered by one search run across a cluster of neighboring asks in this Chapter.
- Also considered: FDA’s REMS and label pages at accessdata.fda.gov were not needed - the object is a coverage requirement, not an approval. FDA approval of ulipristal is untouched.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- Ella (ulipristal acetate) coverage under the contraceptive mandate
- ID
- 1349