On Jan. 18, President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new branch of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division will be part of the HHS Office of Civil Rights, which enforces federal anti-discrimination and privacy laws. It is designed to protect religious medical practitioners who refuse to treat certain patients because of their beliefs. This mostly pertains to abortions and transgender patients, though it is unsure just how far this protection can be taken.
In the eyes of the religious community in America, this is a big step in obtaining better religious rights. Religious medical practitioners view this as a way to prevent violations of their beliefs and morals under legal protection.
However, the creation of the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division is looking to have more negative effects than positive ones. Many may believe that it protects the religious rights of the doctors, but in reality it could potentially undermine rights of the members in the LGBTQ community as well. Medical practitioners can refuse to perform sex reassignment surgery or even refuse post-operative treatment to a patient who had an abortion or is transgender because it goes against their religious beliefs. Additionally, the rights of women are under attack because physicians could refuse to perform an abortion, a right guaranteed by the Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade.
For the transgender patient who already suffers discrimination in their everyday lives, this action can potentially single them out further. Now, in a place that is supposed to be providing medical help and consultation to those in need, transgender individuals can be refused service and turned away from receiving the treatment they might need.
What should guide the actions of medical practitioners are the existing medical standards: that everyone should be able to get the treatment they want, no matter their race, skin color, orientation or beliefs. Religious liberty should not include discrimination in the workplace, especially in the medical field.
These new regulations could bring about questions of how existing medical laws, standards, and rules will be affected. For example, the Hippocratic Oath contains sections dealing with the patient as a human with an outside life that may be affected by their illness, and that the practitioner is still a member of society and has obligations to their fellow human beings. This seems to go against the ability to refuse treatment to certain people which is now protected by a federal agency.
Unfortunately, not much can be done to resolve this situation unless a case is taken to court. Trump created this division in a way that did not require him to go through Congress, meaning it did not get debated nor voted on by state representatives. Also, recent cases pertaining to the right to refuse a member of the LGBTQ community a service have been brought to court and so far one has ruled in favor of the person refusing the service, which does not fare well for the possibility of bringing a case on the Conscious and Religious Freedom Division to court. For now, America must see how this plays out and hope that things are not taken too far.
Maeve Campbell // Graphics Dept.
