The Trump administration on Thursday added protections for medical workers so they won’t be forced to provide or refer to abortion, sterilization, or medically assisted suicide if doing so violates their faith.
“The final rule fulfills President Trump’s promise to promote and protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious liberty,” officials from the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
The rule will let healthcare providers, employers, and insurers file with the agency’s Office for Civil Rights when they encounter situations in which they are compelled to provide, discuss, or refer for the services. The Trump administration added the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division to the agency last year to investigate such violations.
Roger Severino, the civil rights office director, stressed in a call with reporters that no new law was being advanced through the regulations, but that they were merely intended to allow for enforcement mechanisms that are common in other civil rights laws.
Organizations that provide abortions disagreed, saying that the Trump administration was opening the door to discrimination in healthcare. They said the rules would allow for women to be denied contraception or to people who are transgender being denied care.
“No one should be denied the right to health care based on the personal beliefs of politicians,” Dr. Leana Wen, Planned Parenthood president, said in a statement.
Critics said the rule forced employers to provide accommodations for workers who refused to provide care that is supposed to be part of their job. Healthcare clinics may be forced to keep receptionists employed who won’t schedule appointments for contraception, according to an example from the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.
Adam Sonfield, senior policy manager at the group, said in a statement that the rule would result in discrimination and that religious freedom laws aren’t supposed to let doctors block patients from getting information and care.
“That’s not freedom of religion, that’s weaponizing ‘religious liberty,’” he said.
But supporters say the rules are necessary so that medical providers don’t lose their jobs if they refuse to help in abortions or refuse to refer to doctors who will prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients.
“This rule ensures that healthcare entities and professionals won’t be bullied out of the healthcare field because they decline to participate in actions that violate their conscience, including the taking of human life,” Severino said.
“Protecting conscience and religious freedom not only fosters greater diversity in healthcare, it’s the law,” Severino concluded.
President Trump first announced the rules were coming at an event Thursday celebrating the National Day of Prayer, saying his administration “finalized new protections of conscience rights for physicians, pharmacists, nurses, teachers, students and faith-based charities.” It will go into effect in 60 days from its final publication.
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