6 Ways The Government's New Health Rulings Could Affect You

By Christianna Silva

The Department of Health and Human Services issued a final rule on Thursday, May 2, that could quota care for an innumerable collection of Residents of the United States by allowing health care institutions and workers to resist to allocate medical care and services like transition-related care, abortion, or assisted suicide for any religious or personally moral reason.

Included in the 440-page report is the ruling on the so-called “conscience rule,” which was first introduced in 2011, nevertheless the HHS noticed "inadequate" because it only covered three conscience statutes – this ruling covers 25. Basically, the “conscience rule” means that any health care professional – from the receptionist who schedules procedures to the doctor themself – can deny care to anyone for any reason as long as they object to that person or the care they are seeking on the basis of personalized reasoning, or a conscience objection.

“This rule ensures that health care entities and professionals won’t be bullied out of the health care field because they reject to participate in actions that violate their conscience, including the taking of human life,” HHS Office of Civil Rights Director Roger Severino mentioned in the rule. “Protecting conscience and religious freedom not only fosters greater diversity in health care, it’s the law."

there really are plenty of issues to break down here, including that patients are far more likely to be afraid to seek medical care because of who they are than doctors are "bullied" out of the healthcare field. According to a study from Lambda Legal, 56 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and 70 percent of transgender and gender non-conforming people announced experiencing discrimination by health care providers. In a 2015 study, 23 percent of transgender respondents mentioned they did not visualize a doctor once they required medical care because they feared that they could be mistreated due to their gender identity. The same study noticed that 55 percent of transgender respondents who sought coverage for a transition-related surgery were denied.

The new HHS ruling, which is an edited version of a ruling first released in 2018, is set to take effect in just 60 days. It was one of the initial actions taken by the HHS's new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division that Severino traditional in 2018. It also comes around the same time as some of the new Title X restrictions are set to go into place; according to Recommended Parenthood president Dr. Leana Wen, such restrictions are unethical and unlawful. “It violates the law as passed by Congress, which specifically states that doctors must allocate the entire length of options to our patients,” she told MTV News in April.

Here are a few of the ways this new HHS ruling could affect you or someone you know.

If you use birth control or need access to emergency contraceptive services

Many religious groups teach that it is intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent pregnancy. If your doctor or pharmacist believes that birth control is morally wrong, or if your hospital is owned by a religious group, they have the correct to reject to give it to you.

If you are seeking an abortion for any reason

According to the Pew Statistics Center, several religions teach that, save for a couple of situations like rape or incest, abortion should not be permitted. That demonstrates, if your medical provider cites their religion because the basis for their conscience objection, they can deny supplying you with an abortion. They can also resist an abortion on moral grounds — that is, if prohibitive state legislation hasn't already made seeking an abortion all yet impossible for you.

If you’re not cisgender

If a healthcare provider has any religious or personally moral objection to caring for a transgender or gender non-conforming person, they can deny care for anything from giving a physical to supplying transition-related care. A study out of the National LGBTQ Task Force shows that this is already rampant without the ruling: Nearly 1 in 5 trans patients announced being rejected care because of their gender identity. Finding gender-affirming, affordable healthcare practitioners can be tough for several people, and can lead to people feeling distrustful of doctors or avoiding going altogether.

If your family members reflects anything other than a specific, heterosexual societal model

According to the Center for American Progress, LGBTQ people and their children already face high rates of health care discrimination. In 2015, an infant in Michigan was turned away from a pediatrician’s office because she had same-sex parents – that was against the law under the Affordable Care Act, nevertheless could be legal under the new HHS guidelines.

“The Trump-Pence administration’s latest attack threatens LGBTQ people by permitting medical providers to deny crucial care based on personalized beliefs,” the Human Rights Campaign Government Affairs Director David Stacy mentioned in a statement about the rule. “The administration’s decision puts LGBTQ people at greater risk of being denied required and suitable health care solely based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Each person deserves access to medically required care and should never be turned away because of who they are or who they love.”

If you’re unmarried, LGBTQ+, or in an interfaith relationship and may like to access IVF

The ruling could permit any medical professional to decline in vitro fertilization to anyone if they have any personalized qualms with what that person’s family member looks like, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. For instance, if a receptionist at a medical office does not believe that two females should have the ability to have a family member with each other, she can decline to schedule a IVF procedure on the basis of a moral objection.

If you need HIV or AIDS-related care

In 2014, hospital personnel refused to give a patient his HIV medication whenever he disclosed that he had sex with other boys. The Affordable Care Act made that discrimination unlawful – this new HHS ruling could make it legal again, despite Trump’s purported vow to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic throughout his tenure as president. This ruling would “pose a direct threat to the health of millions of Americans,” AIDS United mentioned in a statement according to Politico, by allowing health care workers to decline to distribute the HIV prevention treatment PrEP. Contributor groups mention this sort of discrimination is intrinsically homophobic, since HIV and AIDS are most commonly linked to the LGBTQ+ community. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, around 1.1 million Residents of the
U.S. Are living with HIV; most them of these who test positive are gay and bisexual men.