The Biden administration is poised to rescind a Trump-era rule allowing healthcare workers to opt out of providing services to which they object on religious or moral grounds without fear of losing their jobs.
“Three people familiar with the deliberations” told Politico of the administration’s plan, and a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson confirmed their assertions. The rule change could be proposed by the end of the month.
The rule, finalized in 2019, “would have allowed doctors, nurses, medical students, pharmacists and other health workers to refuse to provide abortions, contraception, gender affirming care [i.e., hormones or surgery to alter sex-specific traits], HIV and STD services, vasectomies or any procedure to which they object,” explained Politico.
However, since the Left will brook no dissent, Democratic lawmakers across the country and pro-abortion groups immediately sued to block the regulation — and succeeded. The rule, therefore, has never actually been implemented.
Nevertheless, even this purely symbolic threat to the Left’s total dominance could not be allowed to stand. According to Politico:
Rescinding the rule is seen by progressive advocates as a key part of dismantling the Trump administration’s legacy on reproductive rights, which Democrats promised to do once they took control of Washington. Last year, Biden moved to undo anti-abortion restrictions on the Title X family planning program and foreign aid, and many groups have pushed for the “conscience” rule to be next.
“There is so much to unravel,” said Leila Abolfazli, the director of federal reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center, which sued the Trump administration over the rule in 2019. “I’m encouraged that they have been working through all these pieces.”
Jacqueline Ayers, senior vice president of policy, organizing, and campaigns for Planned Parenthood — which, naturally, was another party to the lawsuit — told Politico her organization is “excited” about the Biden move.
“As state politicians continue to strip people of their sexual and reproductive rights and freedoms, it’s imperative that the Biden-Harris administration revoke this discriminatory policy and help ensure people can access the health care and information they need when they need it,” she said.
Note that Ayers is only concerned with discrimination against people who wish to receive certain types of treatments, not discrimination against those who could be forced to provide them.
“No American should be forced to violate their ethical and religious beliefs. Doctors, nurses, and other medical providers should enjoy this same constitutional protection, free to live and work in a manner consistent with their faith,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Matt Bowman said in a statement. “Yet the Biden administration’s proposed rule would abandon health care professionals to being forced to perform medical procedures that directly violate their religious beliefs or risk losing their jobs. This is an illegal and gross overreach of executive power, and we urge the administration to withdraw this harmful proposal immediately.”
Even though the regulation in Biden’s sights isn’t in force, “many progressive groups that have called for the rule change say they’re reserving judgment until they see whether the Biden administration will completely undo the Trump administration rule or leave some aspects in place,” reported Politico.
Meanwhile, those on the Right who cheered the rule’s creation and now fear its rescission ought to keep in mind that it wouldn’t even be an issue if the government were obeying the Constitution. LifeNews.com noted that “the rule added weight to conscience protection laws by allowing the federal government to revoke taxpayer funding from hospitals, universities and other healthcare providers that violate their employees’ conscience rights.” But taxpayer funding of these entities was never envisioned by the Framers of the Constitution; and without it, Washington would have no leverage to force said entities either to retain or to fire any employees. Such matters would be left up to state and local governments and private contracts.
As The New American’s Steve Byas observed, “Until the American people force their elected officials to respect the restrictions placed upon the federal government by the Constitution, we can expect to see secular progressives continue to take money out of the pockets of productive Americans to promote the killing of the unborn and the rest of the agenda of the secular progressive Left.”
