Officials within the Biden administration are working hard to remove a Trump-era rule intended to provide protections for religious health care workers by letting them refuse to treat or provide services that they think violate their moral beliefs and conscience.
Staying in the same vein as the rest of Biden’s agenda, one spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stated a strong confirmation via Politico, this past Tuesday, of measures that are going to remove the Trump-era rules are coming down the river.
“HHS has made clear through the unified regulatory agenda that we are in the rulemaking process,” stated the spokesperson.
This rule from the Trump administration which was first introduced back in 2018 and was then quickly blocked by the courts, was seen as a boon to the people’s religious liberties, particularly in regard to workers in health care positions that were opposed to abortion services and the ever increasingly common transgender “treatments” targeting kids.
It was highlighted by Politico that this rule from Trump would have “allowed doctors, nurses, medical students, pharmacists and other health workers to refuse to provide abortions, contraception, gender affirming care, HIV and STD services, vasectomies or any procedure to which they object.”
Just a scant few weeks ago, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated that lawmakers who are taking strieds to protect minors from exposure to puberty blocks and transgender procedures have been “put on notice” by officials within the U.S. Department of Justice.
“Alabama’s lawmakers and other legislators who are contemplating these … discriminatory bills have been put on notice by the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services that laws and policies preventing care that health care professionals recommend for transgender minors may violate the Constitution and federal law,” stated Psaki as part of a press briefing.
These comments from the press secretary were seemingly in reference to Alabama isueing a ban on doctors that prevented them from issuing puberty blockers to children or mutilating them if they claim to “identify” as the opposite sex, and helping with the advancement of parental rights by forbidding teachers’ “instruction” on gender identity and sexuality between kindergarten and children in fifth grade.
Then-director of the HHS Office of Civil Rights, Roger Severino, issued pariase for Trump’s “conscience” rule back in 2019, when it became finalized.
“This rule ensures that healthcare entities and professionals won’t be bullied out of the health care field because they decline to participate in actions that violate their conscience, including the taking of human life,” he claimed, as stated by Christianity Today. “Protecting conscience and religious freedom not only fosters greater diversity in healthcare, it’s the law.”
Eric Hargan, who was at the time HHS Secretary, stated that Trump’s choice at that time was a promise kept.
“President Trump promised the American people that his administration would vigorously uphold the rights of conscience and religious freedom,” stated Hargan. “That promise is being kept today. The Founding Fathers knew that a nation that respects conscience rights is more diverse and more free, and OCR’s new division will help make that vision a reality.”