PHOENIX - Arizona businesses that designate themselves as a "religiously affiliated employer" will no longer have to include contraception in the insurance coverage they provide for their workers.
Gov. Jan Brewer has signed legislation to broaden an exemption to a 2002 law prohibiting businesses that provide prescription drugs as part of their health-insurance plans from excluding birth control pills.

"In its final form, this bill is about nothing more than preserving religious freedom to which were all constitutionally entitled," Brewer said in a prepared statement. "Mandating that a religious institution provide a service in direct contradiction with its faith would represent an obvious encroachment upon the First Amendment."