![\"Law](\"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/law-spelled-out-in-block-pieces--300x200.jpg\" "\\"healthcare")
<\/a><\/p>\nTwo federal judges\u2014Paul A Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York and Stanley A. Bastian of the Eastern District of Washington\u2014shot down the Trump administration\u2019s proposal due to concerns over its constitutionality. Judge Engelmayer declared it \u201cunconstitutionally coercive\u201d because it would have allowed the Department of Health and Human Services to withhold billions of dollars of funding from hospitals, clinics, universities and health care providers that refused to comply, and Judge Bastian argued against a Justice Department attorney\u2019s assertion that the rule wasn\u2019t discriminatory but simply allowed refusal of some treatments by calling it \u201cdiscrimination by another name.\u201d<\/p>\n
The proposed 440-page rule would have allowed doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers to refuse services based on their own personal moral or religious reasons. Proponents of the legislation argued that there are already \u201cconscience protection laws\u201d that prevent doctors and nurses from participating in abortions and assisted suicide due to religious beliefs and that these laws prevent them from \u201cbeing bullied\u201d because of their beliefs. The new legislation would have established stronger enforcement of federal conscience and anti-discrimination laws and given healthcare providers more decision-making power protecting them from coercion or discrimination based on their religious beliefs and moral convictions. But New York Attorney General Letitia James wasn\u2019t buying that argument. She said the rule would lead to open discrimination against some patients.<\/p>\n
James issued a statement that read, “Health care is a basic right that should never be subject to political games.”<\/p>\n
Fortunately, it will remain that way. Had this legislation been signed into law, its effects would have been far-reaching. Pharmacists who refused to fill certain prescriptions (e.g., abortion medications or hormone replacement drugs) due to their personal convictions would have been immune from legal retribution, for example. LGBTQ advocacy groups and civil rights organizations were thankful for the judges\u2019 rulings, issuing statements calling the proposed legislation an \u201cegregious and unconstitutional\u201d attack on women, LGBT people, and other marginalized and vulnerable individuals.<\/p>\n
One senior attorney at Lambda Legal says the decisions \u201clikely saved countless lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Proposed Trump administration legislation that would have let health care workers refuse care to patients based on their \u201creligious beliefs or moral convictions\u201d was deemed unconstitutional by two federal judges in recent days. LGBTQ patients and pro-abortion activists are breathing a sigh of relief following the ruling, which kills a rule that was set to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"schema":"","placeID":"","no_match":false,"name":"","company":"","review":"","address":"","city":"","state":"","zip":"","lat":"","lng":"","phone1":"","phone2":"","fax":"","mon1":"","mon2":"","tue1":"","tue2":"","wed1":"","wed2":"","thu1":"","thu2":"","fri1":"","fri2":"","sat1":"","sat2":"","sun1":"","sun2":"","hours-note":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practice-advice"],"yoast_head":"\n
Judges Strike Down \u201cUnconstitutional\u201d Ruling; Healthcare Workers Can\u2019t Discriminate | ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT | Proposed Trump administration legislation that would have let health care workers refuse care to patients based on their \u201creligious beliefs or moral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Judges Strike Down \u201cUnconstitutional\u201d Ruling; Healthcare Workers Can\u2019t Discriminate | ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT | Proposed Trump administration legislation that would have let health care workers refuse care to patients based on their \u201creligious beliefs or moral\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-19T22:56:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/law-spelled-out-in-block-pieces-.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"427\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fuel Medical\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fuel Medical\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Judges Strike Down \u201cUnconstitutional\u201d Ruling; Healthcare Workers Can\u2019t Discriminate | ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT","description":"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT | Proposed Trump administration legislation that would have let health care workers refuse care to patients based on their \u201creligious beliefs or moral","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Judges Strike Down \u201cUnconstitutional\u201d Ruling; Healthcare Workers Can\u2019t Discriminate | ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT","og_description":"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT | Proposed Trump administration legislation that would have let health care workers refuse care to patients based on their \u201creligious beliefs or moral","og_url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/","og_site_name":"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT","article_published_time":"2019-11-19T22:56:16+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":427,"url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/law-spelled-out-in-block-pieces-.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Fuel Medical","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fuel Medical","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/","url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/","name":"Judges Strike Down \u201cUnconstitutional\u201d Ruling; Healthcare Workers Can\u2019t Discriminate | ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/law-spelled-out-in-block-pieces-.jpg","datePublished":"2019-11-19T22:56:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/#\/schema\/person\/058d6daba2ec4ebe23780cae2aad3977"},"description":"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT | Proposed Trump administration legislation that would have let health care workers refuse care to patients based on their \u201creligious beliefs or moral","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/law-spelled-out-in-block-pieces-.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/law-spelled-out-in-block-pieces-.jpg","width":640,"height":427,"caption":"Law spelled out in blocks"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/judges-strike-down-unconstitutional-ruling-healthcare-workers-cant-discriminate\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Judges Strike Down \u201cUnconstitutional\u201d Ruling; Healthcare Workers Can\u2019t Discriminate"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/","name":"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/#\/schema\/person\/058d6daba2ec4ebe23780cae2aad3977","name":"Fuel Medical","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/81ec3720ac631f57767b69ff069dee63?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/81ec3720ac631f57767b69ff069dee63?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Fuel Medical"},"url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/author\/fuel-admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1891,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions\/1891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Law](\"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/law-spelled-out-in-block-pieces-.jpg\" "\\"healthcare")
<\/a><\/p>\n