Comment on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Rule
Comment on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Rule
Access a .pdf of the original Press Advisory circulated regarding this work
In medical facilities across the country, doctors whose conscience would require them to perform a sterilization on a patient who requests one, offer truthful information about accessing abortion services, or provide comprehensive LGBTQ+ health care are forbidden from doing so by their employer. The conscience of such medical providers is entirely ignored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s (HHS) recently proposed rule that purports to “ensure that persons or entities” providing health care “are not subjected to certain practices or policies that violate conscience, coerce, or discriminate.” As explained in a comment submitted today by the Columbia Law School's Law, Rights, and Religion Project, HHS’s proposed rule provides conscience protection only to those whose religious views match those of the administration. The rule is therefore legally suspect.
The HHS rule would enact sweeping protections for medical providers, health care facilities, insurance plans, and even employers who believe that abortion, sterilization, and other health care services are morally wrong. In contrast, it provides only extremely limited protections to those whose religious or moral beliefs lead them to offer their patients the full range of sexual and reproductive health care.
There are many such providers; studies and articles have described a wide range of conflicts between physicians who wish to provide reproductive health care to patients, especially emergency care, and faith-based medical facilities that prohibit this care. Furthermore, abortion providers frequently speak of their practice in religious or moral terms. To provide just a few examples, Dr. George Tiller referred to his work providing abortion care as a “ministry.” Dr. Sara Imershein has described providing abortion care as a “mitzvah” and said that “No one should be able to step in the way of what I consider to be my moral obligation.” Dr. LeRory Carhart stated in an interview, “I think what I'm doing is because of God, not in spite of God.”
“Under the proposed rule, a doctor who refuses to provide care that is medically indicated and requested by a patient is protected, while a doctor who does provide this care in accordance with her conscience can be fired,” said Elizabeth Reiner Platt, Director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project. “Not only does this scheme fail to ensure patient health, it also fails to safeguard the very right it claims to defend—the freedom of conscience.”