Trump’s Health Department Gives Health Workers License To Refuse Care For Transgender People, Women Who’ve Had Abortions
Rule announced by transphobic bigot Roger Severino
05.02.19 – Alex Azar’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier today announced a final rule allowing health care workers to discriminate against a variety of individuals as they seek basic health care services. Under this new rule, 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.”
Today’s rollback comes directly from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), an office within HHS; just yesterday, OCR announced plans to revamp its mission and double down on its intention to serve as a “law enforcement agency.”
Said Mary Alice Carter, Executive Director of Equity Forward:
“Religious freedom doesn’t mean carte blanche to discriminate, especially in a health care setting. People should never fear that they’re going to be denied care because of their gender, who they love or their past medical decisions. Today’s rule codifies discrimination and it will result in deep harm to patient care. Alex Azar and Roger Severino should be ashamed. This is exactly the opposite of what our health department should stand for.”
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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