Trump rule lets clinicians refuse to do abortions

WASHINGTON — Advancing his antiabortion agenda, President Trump on Thursday moved 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.”

San Francsico City Attorney Dennis Herrera immediately filed suit in federal court to block the new rule. The suit contends that the policy exceeds the Trump administration’s authority, violates the constitutional separation of church and state and conflicts with a federal law prohibiting the government from creating “unreasonable barriers to the ability of individuals to obtain appropriate medical care.”

The rule elevates health care providers’ “religious beliefs over the health and lives of women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people, and other medically and socially vulnerable populations,” the suit said. It said San Francisco, which now accommodates medical personnel’s religious objections when other staff members are available, could lose nearly $1 billion in federal funds if it refuses to comply with the administration’s rule.

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.

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.

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.