Comments Submitted Opposing License to Discriminate in Healthcare
Gender Justice submitted comments on a proposed rule by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department that seeks to permit health care providers to discriminate against patients for any reason based on their religious beliefs.
We collaborated on our comments with our partners in The Alliance: State Advocates for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, which is comprised of five state and regional law and policy centers including Legal Voice in the Pacific Northwest, Women’s Law Project in Pennsylvania, Southwest Women’s Law Center in New Mexico, California Women’s Law Center, and Gender Justice.
Read our comments in full here.
“Women, immigrants, individuals living with disabilities, LGBTQ individuals, people living in rural communities, and people of color face severe health and health care disparities, and these disparities are compounded for individuals who hold these multiple identities. […]
The Proposed Rule’s expansion of refusals will exacerbate these disparities and undermine the ability of individuals to access comprehensive and unbiased health care, especially sexual and reproductive health information and services. Any efforts by providers or other health care personnel to limit the information and access that patients are entitled to receive, even when the organization may not provide those services itself, is incompatible with true consumer choice and individual decision making.— Comments to HHS from The Alliance
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