Trump administration will allow doctors to DENY care to LGBT patients
The move has been condemned by LGBT activists and organisations
The Trump administration has announced the creation of a new division in the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights that will allow for LGBT discrimination.
Under new guidelines, the division will allow healthcare providers to deny care to LGBT people and pregnant women based on religious beliefs, LGBTQ Nation reports.
The division was announced yesterday (January 18) by HHS Acting Secretary Eric Hargan who said the new rule upholds “the rights of conscience and religious freedom.”
The move has been condemned by activists and organisations, who claim it will endanger lives.
In an emailed statement, Jerame Davis, the Executive Director of Pride At Work, called the new division a “mockery”.
He said: “This brand of so-called ‘religious freedom’ is a mockery of the fundamental religious protections provided by our Constitution. It is not ‘freedom’ of religion to use your faith as a weapon to harm others.”
Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, said: “any healthcare worker who has moral objections to providing medically necessary care to an entire vulnerable population is in the wrong line of work.”
She continued: “Denying a transgender person – or any person – life saving care if they walk into an emergency room is far from a moral act, it is unjust and dangerous.
“Trump, Pence and Trump’s appointees have tried time and again to establish blatantly bigoted policies that harm transgender and gender non-conforming Americans, and history will neither forget nor forgive this Administration’s attacks on its own people.”
Meanwhile, Roger Servino, the head of civil right enforcement at the Department of Health and Human Services, previously opposed protections and equality for minoritiy communities and argued against legalising same-sex marriage.
The news comes just days after Trump claimed he supports gay equality in a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans.