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Blurred hospital hallway. Stock image, Shutterstock.
November 6, 2019
Catholic News AgencyNEW YORK CITY - A federal judge in New York overturned the Trump administration’s conscience protection rule for health care workers on Wednesday, saying it crossed the line from persuasion to coercion and broke with longstanding legal frameworks on federal reimbursement of state health services.
The rule would have expanded the grounds on which health care workers could refuse to perform abortions and other procedures based on religious objections.
The “Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Care” rule was finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services in May and set to go into effect on Nov. 22. It required that federally funded organizations be certified compliant with more than two dozen existing statutory conscience protections in health care.
These protections would allow health care professionals to opt out of performing or assisting in procedures they are morally opposed to, such as abortions and gender-transition surgeries.
Judge Paul Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York vacated the HHS rule in a 146-page decision, issued Nov. 6, saying that while the provisions “recognize and protect undeniably important rights,” they do not comply with the U.S. Constitution and Administrative Procedure Act.
"Although the Supreme Court has never attempted to 'fix the outermost line where persuasion gives way to coercion'... its decisions ... provide guidance as to when a federal financial inducement crosses the line from encouragement to a financial 'gun to the head,'" the judge wrote.
Engelmayer said he rule "would substantively transform the existing regulatory regime, changing long-standing agreements on how regulated entities must respond to conscience-based objections in the health care area "while dramatically raising the stakes of non-compliance."
State public health institutions "have put in place intricate legal frameworks and policies governing employees’ religious objections, all premised on the existing legal regime," he judge wrote, adding that
although the amount of federal health care funding put at risk by the rule is not known, it is "coercively large."
"Your money or your life’ is a coercive proposition, whether you have a single dollar in your pocket or $500,"' Engelmayer said.
Three sets of plaintiffs had sued the administration over the rule, including 19 states, the District of Columbia, three local governments, Planned Parenthood’s national federation and Northern New England affiliate, and National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association and Public Health Solutions, Inc.
“This decision leaves health care professionals across America vulnerable to being forced to perform, facilitate, or refer for procedures that violate their conscience,” said Stephanie Taub, Senior Counsel for First Liberty Institute, a legal organization that works to protect religious freedom.
Planned Parenthood Action praised the decision on Wednesday, saying that the HHS rule gave health care workers “a license to discriminate” and that “all patients should be able to access the care they need without judgment or discrimination.”
The HHS rule was issued simply to give “enforcement tools” for conscience laws that were already in place, Roger Severino, director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights, said in a July statement.
“This rule ensures that health care entities and professionals won’t be bullied out of the health care field because they decline to participate in actions that violate their conscience, including the taking of human life,” Severino said when the rule was finalized in May.
In August, the OCR said it had found a case at the University of Vermont Medical Center where a nurse had reportedly been coerced into assisting with an abortion against her conscientious beliefs. HHS had issued a notice of violation to the hospital.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, criticized the district court judge’s decision on Wednesday, calling it “absurd mush” and saying that “In this country, government doesn’t get to tell you that your faith is fine on Sunday at church but not Monday at work.”
New York state Attorney General Letitia James welcomed the ruling.
“Health care is a basic right that should never be subject to political games," she said. "Once again, the courts have blocked the Trump Administration from implementing a discriminatory rule that would only hurt Americans. The refusal of care rule was an unlawful attempt to allow health care providers to openly discriminate and refuse to provide necessary health care to patients based on providers’ ‘religious beliefs or moral objections.’ We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to protect access to health care and protect the rights of all individuals.”Catholic San Francisco contributed.