The U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) has proposed new changes to regulations meant to protect conscience rights in health care. Let HHS know that conscience matters to you!
Numerous federal laws protect the right of organizations and people working in health care to object, as a matter of conscience, to abortion, sterilization, assisted suicide, gender transition surgery, and other procedures. The enforcement of these laws is governed by HHS regulations, so it is very important for HHS to issue strong regulations and keep them that way.
HHS has proposed revisions to these regulations, known as the “Conscience Rule,” which implements over a dozen conscience statutes. Under the Trump administration, HHS issued a strong version of the Conscience Rule, but courts struck it down, leaving in place the previous, extremely weak version from the Obama administration. On January 5, 2023, HHS proposed a new version.
The USCCB supports this new proposed rule as an improvement over the current situation in which the 2019 Rule is not in place, but also urges HHS to strengthen the proposed rule. Join the USCCB in encouraging HHS to strengthen the Conscience Rule.
To learn more, read USCCB’s published comments on the rule, Cardinal Dolan’s December 30 statement, and visit the USCCB’s “Do No Harm” webpage on these regulations at the links below.
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