Last week, a federal judge in Nebraska allowed Planned Parenthood to sue Union Pacific Railroad on behalf of 47,000 unionized workers - including nearly 2,000 in Utah - who have to pay the cost of contraception out of their own pockets. Salt Lake City-based Union Pacific Railroad Employees Health Systems manages medical insurance for about half of those workers.

Planned Parenthood attorney Roberta Riley said the class-action lawsuit shows women will challenge businesses' inconsistent health care policies - even if government leaders won't. Utah legislators' unwillingness to pass "contraceptive equity" legislation this year leaves businesses in the state vulnerable to sex-discrimination litigation, Riley said.

"The Utah Legislature could do the right thing for businesses and workers by enacting this law," she said.

As in years past, conservative Utah lawmakers in their 2005 session declined to debate the bill, which has been introduced annually.

Taylorsville Republican Sen. Mike Waddoups said lawmakers are reluctant to meddle in the corporate world by forcing a standardized insurance policy on Utah companies. "We'd be telling them how to run their businesses," Waddoups said, adding he doubts threat of a lawsuit would change that stance.

Twenty-one other states have adopted contraceptive equity legislation and supporters believe the lawsuit is evidence of the risk businesses are taking.

"Refusal to cover birth control like other prescription drugs is discrimination, plain and simple," said Planned Parenthood lobbyist and executive Bev Cooper. "The writing's on the wall for Utah and other states. It's just a matter of time."

In the case of Union Pacific, Riley sued on behalf of four female railroad employees living in Idaho, Oregon, Missouri and Washington, charging that the company's refusal to cover women's birth control is sexual discrimination.

Union Pacific covers the cost of prescription birth control for its 3,000 managers, but will not cover rank-and-file employee's prescriptions. Women who have a note from a doctor proving they will use the pill for acne treatment can get an exception to the policy. At the same time, Union Pacific pays for male employees' Viagra prescriptions.

Union Pacific Railroad Employees Health Systems' Kevin Potts said his insurance company is simply following the Omaha-based railroad's policies not to cover prescription birth control for unionized workers.

"It has historically been a railroad decision that we follow suit on," Potts said.

Attorneys with Union Pacific's corporate office did not return calls for comment.