Tish leads suit vs. ‘Final Rule’
Says faith is no excuse to deny care
New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading a coalition of states suing to block a planned move to give health care workers more latitude to refuse to treat patients over their personal opposition to procedures from measles shots to birth control.
The lawsuit seeks to roll back a new federal “Final Rule” permitting hospitals or individual doctors and nurses freedom to use their own religious beliefs as an excuse to not offer needed medical treatment.
“The federal government is giving health care providers free license to openly discriminate and refuse care to patients,” James said in a statement. “[It’s] a gross misinterpretation of religious freedom that will have devastating consequences.”
President Trump and fellow Republicans defend the rule as a way of ensuring that the religious freedom of health care providers is respected.
They often compare the issue to that of merchants who refuse to serve LGBT clients because of their religious objection to homosexuality.
James says the rule, which is scheduled to go into effect in July, would lead to anti-vaxxer nurses refusing to administer measles inoculations or emergency room doctors failing to perform lifesaving procedures on pregnant women. It would “vastly expand” so-called religious-freedom exceptions to include people like doctor’s office receptionists and insurance agents to steer patients away from treatments they object to.
The rule would allow the federal government to deny billions of dollars in health care aid to states or cities that don’t abide by the edicts. The lawsuit against the Health and Human Services Department was filed in Manhattan Federal Court.