Trump defends right to refuse abortions
WASHINGTON (AP) — Advancing his anti-abortion agenda, President Donald Trump moved Thursday to protect health care workers who object to procedures like abortion on moral or religious grounds.
Trump chose the National Day of Prayer to announce the new regulation.
“Just today we finalized new protections of conscience rights for physicians, pharmacists, nurses, teachers, students and faith-based charities,” Trump told an interfaith audience in the White House Rose Garden. “They’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.”
The conscience rule was a priority for religious conservatives who are a key part of Trump’s political base, but some critics fear it will become a pretext for denying medical attention to LGBT people or women seeking abortions, a legal medical procedure.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “these bigoted rules are immoral, deeply discriminatory and downright deadly, greenlighting open discrimination in health care against LGTBQ Americans and directly threatening the well-being of millions.
“Make no mistake,” she added, “this is an open license to discriminate against Americans who already face serious, systemic discrimination.” She said she was also addressing another pending regulation seen as undermining the rights of transgender patients.
The complex rule runs more than 400 pages and requires hospitals, universities, clinics and other institutions that receive funding from federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid to certify that they comply with some 25 federal laws protecting conscience and religious rights.
Most of these laws and provisions address medical procedures such as abortion, sterilization and assisted suicide. The ultimate penalty can be loss of federal funding for violations of conscience or religious rights, but most cases are settled by making changes in practices and procedures.
The rule makes no new law and doesn’t go beyond statutes passed under administrations of both political parties, said Roger Severino, head of the office that will enforce it at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Rather, the regulation will guarantee that religious and conscience protections already on the books can’t be ignored.
Under the rule, clinicians and institutions would not have to provide, participate in, pay for, cover or make referrals for procedures they object to on moral or religious grounds.
The rule also addresses conscience protections involving so-called advance directives that detail a patient’s wishes for care at the end of life.