HHS creates new religious freedom division in OCR

In a significant shift for HHS’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), a new “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” is being created dedicated to complaints from healthcare professionals who feel they were discriminated against due to refusing to perform certain services based on religious or moral objections.

It will be a co-equal branch of OCR along with existing divisions dealing with civil rights laws and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Its website specifically mentions addressing concerns of healthcare workers being coerced into having any involvement with abortions, sterilizations or assisted suicide.

While the new division's website also mentioned addressing discrimination against workers who chose to participate in procedures like abortions, the press conference exclusively focused on helping healthcare professionals who object to those practices.

“HHS has not always been the best keeper of this liberty,” said OCR Director Roger Severino. “Times are changing and we are institutionalizing a change in the culture of government, beginning with HHS, to never forget that religious freedom is a primary freedom. That it is a civil right that deserves complete enforcement.”

The announcement follows President Donald Trump’s May 2017 executive order on religious freedom, which included directing the government to address “conscience-based objections” to healthcare regulations. This included the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that health plans cover preventive care screenings and contraceptives for women.

Acting HHS Secretary Eric Hargan said religiously affiliated healthcare providers or individual clinicians have been “bullied” over their beliefs and have been forced to provide or make referrals to procedures they find morally objectionable. The new division, he said, will “vigorously enforce” existing laws and regulations on conscience protections, including those contained in the ACA.

Speakers hinted the new division could also target state laws or regulations opposed by anti-abortion groups. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, mentioned his own state’s law which requires licensed pregnancy centers—even though with a religious affiliation—to offer information about contraception, abortion and prenatal care options, though not to provide them. Centers have unsuccessfully sued to block the law, while supporters of it have said the religiously-affiliated centers exist solely to “discourage and prevent women from seeking abortions.”

“In this past, this department’s silent refusal to defend our rights sent a very clear message. Now is not the time for freedom. It’s time for you to conform. What a difference one year makes,” McCarthy said.

Since President Donald Trump took office, HHS has shifted its focus to these conscience protections. Severino mentioned that complaints to OCR about violations of those protections have increased from 10 total from 2008 through 2016 to 34 since Trump was elected in Nov. 2016.

The agency had also solicited comments on how to reduce HHS regulations on religious and faith-based groups, such as Obama-era policies on treating transgender patients. Initially, it only posted 80 of the more than 12,000 comments which were supportive of the move, many of which repeated the same line about clinicians experiencing “pressure from government laws, regulations, policies or communications to alter your faith-based views.”

Democrats have been consistently opposed to this shift in focus by HHS under Trump. The co-chairs of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, and Louise Slaughter, D-New York, said in a statement that “ill-defined ‘moral objections’ can used to justify harming another individual.”

“This is a political attempt to put patients’ health at risk in clear violation of medical duty,” they said. “A provider’s personal beliefs should never determine the care a patient receives.”