California’s Democratic leaders were defiant Friday after the Trump administration threatened to cut federal health care funding to the nation’s most populous state over its requirement that insurance plans cover abortions.

The administration’s announcement came hours before President Donald Trump became the first president to address participants in the anti-abortion March for Life in person, telling marchers gathered in the nation’s capital that “unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House.”

He spoke after the federal Health and Human Services Department issued a “notice of violation,” giving California 30 days to comply with a federal law known as the Weldon amendment. That law bars federal health care funding from being provided to states or entities that practice “discrimination” against a health care organization on the basis that it “does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.”

The head of the HHS Office for Civil Rights, Roger Severino, said California is violating that restriction by requiring insurance plans to cover abortions. According to Severino, 28,000 Californians had abortion-free plans prior to the state’s requirements and have now lost that option.

Severino said in a statement that California “must stop forcing people of good will to subsidize the taking of human life….”

The above comes from a Jan. 24 story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.