LGBTQ and reproductive rights advocates are in court today to fight a Trump administration rule that allows health care workers to refuse to provide medical services that violate their religious or moral beliefs. They argue that the rule is unlawful and permits discrimination against LGBTQ people and our families, among others.
The Trump administration’s Denial of Care Rule allows any health care worker—including doctors, nurses, EMTs, administrators, janitors, and clerical staff—to deny medical treatment, information, and services to patients because of the worker’s personal religious or moral beliefs, even if their medical institution takes federal funds like Medicare or Medicaid. The language of the new rule (officially called “Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Care; Delegations of Authority”) focuses on abortion, sterilization, and assisted suicide, but its impact could be even broader. As Fenway Health explained in May when it was finalized, it could allow health care workers to “[refuse] to serve LGBT people or their children based on the belief that same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry or raise children, that people should not have sex outside of heterosexual marriage, and that gender identity should not differ from sex at birth.” And HRC has noted that it could be used “to deny treatment or preventative care for AIDS or HIV, hormone therapy treatment and transition related care and in-vitro fertilization for lesbians, single women or interfaith couples.” That’s right—doctors could refuse to care for our children or to help us create our families in the first place.
You might ask, “Why would I even want to use a health care provider who is biased against LGBTQ people? I’ll just go someplace else.” Not everyone has that choice, however—sometimes, there are few providers in a particular specialty within a reasonable geographic area; sometimes, there are few that take a person’s insurance. And sometimes, one biased person—say, a medical technician—in an otherwise nonbiased office can refuse to treat a patient and make their medical process longer, more complicated, and potentially dangerous, depending on what it is.
Numerous health care providers and medical professionals, along with the County of Santa Clara, are challenging the Denial of Care Rule to try and stop it from going into effect on November 22nd. They are represented by Lambda Legal, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Lambda Legal, the Santa Clara County Counsel, and pro bono counsel Mayer Brown LLP. Their Complaint asserts that the Rule will “stigmatize and shame” patients, particularly “women seeking reproductive healthcare and transgender and gender-nonconforming patients seeking gender-affirming care.” It will unconstitutionally deny them “access to healthcare and their dignity and autonomy in seeking medically necessary healthcare central to their self-determination” and “render them less likely to seek healthcare services at all, detrimentally affecting not only individual patients’ mental and physical health, but public health generally.”
Additionally, they say, the Rule is full of holes and could negatively impact more than just the patients discriminated against:
By failing to provide for emergency exceptions or to address an array of other issues about the Rule’s requirements, the agency’s action leaves healthcare providers utterly in the dark about what they may or may not do to protect patients consistent with the Rule. If they guess wrong, they could lose federal funding, which would frustrate their ability to provide adequate care to their most needy patients.
In enacting it, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has “acted arbitrarily and capriciously, in excess of its statutory authority, and in conflict with other laws.”
The Trump administration is also trying to allow foster care and adoption agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ people and others in the name of religion while still receiving taxpayer funds. Yes, these threats to our selves and our families are daunting—but we’ve faced daunting challenges before. Speak out in your extended families and communities about why these issues matter to you. Share about the issues on social media. And vote.