BREAKING: In Shocking Move, Civil Rights Office in Trump’s Health Department Plans Revamps Itself As A “Law Enforcement Agency”
05.01.19 – Earlier today, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), an office within Alex Azar’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced plans to revamp its mission and double down on its intention to serve as a “law enforcement agency.” Today’s shocking announcement comes as OCR is expected to roll back Obama-era protections for a variety of individuals as they seek health care, including LGBTQ people and women who have had abortions. Specifically, health care workers would be permitted to refuse to provide basic health care like birth control, refuse to treat women who have had abortions and discriminate against gay or lesbian individuals and their families, including their children, without consequence in the name of “religious freedom.”
Said Mary Alice Carter, Executive Director of Equity Forward:
“As a lesbian, I enter every interaction with my health care professionals wondering how they will react, whether they will treat me the same as their other patients. I worry when I have to see my partner in emergency settings, whether someone will deny her care if we make it plain who we are. So far, I have been fortunate. No one has denied my family or me care — because the majority of health care providers don’t discriminate. But this isn’t the case for many in the LGBTQ community, and this move by OCR will further embolden bigots to deny care, which will be dangerous, even fatal, to some.
This announcement is terrifying. It is frightening to know that our nation’s health department is working overtime to make it easier to deny care to people like me. Secretary Azar and OCR Director Roger Severino should be working to expand access to health care, not weaponizing religious freedom to rob women, LGBTQ individuals and their families of access to health services.”
OCR is currently run by Roger Severino, a transphobic bigot and former staffer at The Heritage Foundation who has professionalized his homophobia and misogyny. Last week, Equity Forward issued a new report on Heritage which demonstrated its deep connections to HHS, essentially serving as a pipeline of hate to the Trump administration.
The Center for American Process (CAP) recently published an analysis which details how Severino’s OCR “seeks to weaken enforcement of civil rights protections and give credence to discrimination against LGBTQ people.”
More information on Severino, as well as more than 50 other anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ appointees at HHS, can be found at HHSWatch.org, an extensive website with a library of research run by Equity Forward.
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