A recent report from this week revealed the Trump administration's plans to overhaul the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) civil rights office rules to protect health workers who cite moral and religious objections to treating patients.
The move has been criticised as an attack on both LGBTQI+ patients as well as women seeking reproductive care, with the move specifically putting protections into place for those workers "who don't want to perform abortions, treat transgender patients seeking to transition or provide other services for which they have religious or moral objections".
The HHS under the Trump administration has been widely criticised for its hiring of Teresa Manning, an anti-abortion activist, who was in charge of the department's family planning programs. Manning resigned from her post last Friday and was replaced by Valerie Huber, an abstinence advocate .
The head of HHS' office of civil rights, Roger Severino has had a long history of speaking out against both abortion and LGBTQI+ rights. Severino last June that he was a "big believer in [religious] conscience" and worked on high-profile cases like as well as legal battles in favour of opposing same-sex marriages. According to Politico, Severino has also been a "strong critic of providing procedures to transgender patients seeking to transition".
The decision to overhaul the HHS is under review at the White House Office of Management and Budget, meanwhile LGBTQI+ activists and have strongly criticised the move by the Trump administration.
Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Louise Melling, released a statement saying,
"Religious liberty doesn’t include a right to be exempt from laws protecting our health or barring discrimination. It doesn’t mean a right to refuse to transport a patient in need because she had an abortion.
"It doesn’t mean refusing care to a patient because she is transgender. Medical standards, not religious belief, should guide medical care. Denying patients health care is not liberty. Choosing your patients based on their gender or gender expression is not freedom. Should the administration choose to move forward to implement a discriminatory policy, we will see them in court.”
The news of the rule broke just hours before the via a satellite video. The anti-abortion march is held around the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which said pregnant women held the constitutional right to have an abortion until the end of the first trimester without state interference.
