WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – The Biden administration appears ready to strip conscience rights from medical professionals and potentially require them to commit abortions, provide transgender procedures, and euthanize people.
The White House regulatory affairs office has published a placeholder for a “Rescission of the Regulation” of the “Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Care; Delegations of Authority” rule finalized under the Trump administration in 2019.
That regulation provides conscience protections for professionals who do not want to engage in “abortion, sterilization, and certain other health services,” “assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing,” and for “managed care organizations with moral or religious objections to counseling or referral for certain services.”
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) flagged the pending regulation in a news release.
ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman stated:
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.
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.
Since taking office, the Biden administration has consistently sought to undermine religious freedom protections while promoting abortion and “gender-affirming care.”
For example, under Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped its lawsuit against the University of Vermont for allegedly coercing a pro-life nurse to assist with an abortion. The decision drew criticism from Roger Severino, former Director of the Office of Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), who initiated the case while working in the Trump administration.
“Such a politically motivated backstab means it’s open season on pro-life doctors and nurses,” he warned last year.
The administration also released two documents in March of this year that encouraged the chemical and genital mutilation of gender-confused children under the guise of providing healthcare.
The administration has also ignored established rule-making processes to try to force Americans to pay for abortions, in violation of provisions of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that explicitly forbid insurance companies from charging individuals to cover other people’s abortions.
The HHS, under Secretary Xavier Becerra, has sought to remove pro-life regulations, including a prohibition on fetal experimentation from aborted babies. Becerra also sent millions to Texas abortion facilities in the wake of the state’s Heartbeat Act.
The Catholic Benefits Association recently warned that the administration plans to force health plans to cover abortion and “sex change” operations.