Donald Trump once described himself as “pro-choice in every respect.” On Thursday, his administration announced a new office to protect doctors and nurses who object to providing abortion services and other medical care on moral and religious grounds.
Trump’s new HHS office will protect health care workers who object to abortion
The new “Conscience and Religious Freedom” division is being cheered by the religious right.
Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images
Jen Kirby is a senior foreign and national security reporter at Vox, where she covers global instability.
Acting HHS Secretary Eric Hargan announced the new “Conscience and Religious Freedom” office, housed in the agency’s Civil Rights division, saying Trump had promised his administration “would vigorously uphold the rights of conscience and religious freedom. That promise is being kept today.”
It’s a major victory for the pro-life movement, especially given Trump’s past comments about his support for abortion. Trump is also planning to speak to March for Life attendees in Washington Friday, the first president ever to do so.
Critics, meanwhile, fear that “moral” objections described by the administration are murky and could become a catchall for all kinds of services, putting vulnerable populations at risk.
What the “Conscience and Religious Freedom” division will do
The move reverses Obama-era health care rules that barred health care workers from refusing to treat transgender patients or people who had sought or were seeking abortions. It is one of a few Obama administration health care policies Trump has targeted, including one that significantly loosened the requirement that employers offer health insurance that covers contraception.
Obama himself revised George W. Bush-era moral and religious objector rules that were seen as too limiting for patients. The Trump administration’s move is a shift back to those earlier “conscientious objector” protections.
Protections already exist in some form for health care providers who object to certain treatments or procedures on religious or moral grounds, so this new office is likely designed to make enforcement of those protections more robust.
It will do this by investigating complaints from those who feel coerced to participate in certain procedures. According to HHS, people can file complaints if “objected to, participated in, or refused to participate in specific medical procedures, including abortion and sterilization, and related training and research activities.” It also covers assisted suicide.
The HHS Office for Civil Rights’s director, Roger Severino, told the Washington Post the division would investigate new and existing moral objection claims, and potentially engage in public education and policy making — though he didn’t include specifics.
We also know that it’ll have some teeth. According to Politico, this new division will be on equal footing with the two already existing in the office that deal with federal civil rights laws and the privacy and other issues that relate to HIPPA.
Critics fear discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation
The new rules most clearly protect health care workers who decline to provide abortion services. Critics say they could also lead to discrimination for lesbian, gay, and transgender patients. Reproductive-rights advocates also fear women’s treatment might be compromised because they sought or are seeking abortions or contraception.
For example, a case in Michigan got national attention in 2015 when a pediatrician refused to treat an infant because his parents were lesbians.
This probably won’t be a huge issue in large facilities or areas with many health care options, but for those who live in underserved or rural areas, critics say it could jeopardize patients’ health.
Trump’s making good on his promises to the religious right
During the 2016 campaign, some conservatives were nervous about Trump’s bonafides on reproductive rights. But Trump’s made good on promises to the religious right since taking office.
“Under President Obama, the federal government failed to enforce federal laws in place to ensure hard working Americans aren’t unfairly punished by the government for simply seeking to live their lives according to their beliefs,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a statement, adding that “Americans should not be forced to choose between their faith and their desire to help patients.”
Severino, the civil rights office director, said the current laws protecting religious freedom “are just empty words on paper” if they’re not enforced.
“No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one’s deepest moral or religious convictions,” he said in a statement, “and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice.”
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