(Photo Credits: Airman 1st Class Grace Nichols, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed the medical conscience objections bill into law last Friday. This means that health care workers and institutions can soon refuse to treat patients based on their religious and moral beliefs.
The new law, which will take effect this late summer, had provoked an outcry from human rights activists and LGBTQ advocates alike as this, they say, “will give providers broad powers to turn away LGBTQ patients and others,” PBS News Hour reports.
The Republican governor opposed a similar bill in 2017. But the law he signed, he explained, is procedure-specific, that it was “narrower and limits the objections to particular health care services, not treating specific types of people.”
“I support this right of conscience so long as emergency care is exempted and conscience objection cannot be used to deny general health service to any class of people,” Hutchinson said in a written statement. “Most importantly, the federal laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, gender, and national origin continue to apply to the delivery of health care services.”
NEW: Gov. @AsaHutchinson has signed SB289 into law. The Medical Ethics & Diversity Act. Opponents argued it would allow health care providers to deny treatment to members of the LGBTQ based on religious beliefs. #arnews #arpx @KATVNews pic.twitter.com/piUoE10qAd
— Marine Glisovic KATV (@KATVMarine) March 26, 2021
Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David however, denounced the new law last Friday. He said, “Governor Hutchinson is proving himself to be a cruel opponent of equality by signing this draconian medical refusal bill.”
Further, HRC said that with this law, doctors can refuse to maintain hormone treatments for transgender patients needing in-patient care for an infection. Pharmacies, on the other hand, can refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control and antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV infection. Others say same-sex couples can be denied grief counseling while physician assistants can “override patient directives on end of life care.”
Meanwhile, Holly Dickson—the Executive Director of the ACLU of Arkansas—said in a statement: “There is no sugarcoating this: this bill is another brazen attempt to make it easier to discriminate against people and deny Arkansans the health care services they need.”
But the medical conscience objections measure is just one of the others. Apart from this bill, Hutchinson signed transgender sports ban into law last Thursday as well. This particular measure prohibits transgender women and girls from competing in school sports teams that align with their gender identity.
Moreover, just this Monday, Arkansas passed a bill called HB 1570, the “Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act” that prohibits doctors from providing gender-affirming health care to transgender youth. With HB 1570, trans youth will also be unable to access health care and insurance coverage for gender-affirming care, Business Insider reports. The legislation is now simply waiting for Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s signature or veto before it formally becomes law.
BREAKING: Arkansas has become the first state to ban health care for trans youth.
— ACLU (@ACLU) March 29, 2021
For more information regarding this story, click here, here, and here.
Everyone has the right to heath care. However, My rights should never infringe
on another persons rights. If your doctor refuses to treat your needs find another doctor
Why would anyone want a doctor that has to be forced to treat you. Really? The LGBT community
is way to selfish and thinks of no one but themselves.
During a yearly exam, my former GP started asking some pointed questions about why I had requested a full bank of STD testing. When I was transparent with him about why, he became even more opinionated. He did more talking than listening. After the exam I chose a new doctor. He is entitled to his beliefs. I am entitled to mine.
He may be entitled to his beliefs…..but the oath doctors take CAN NOT discriminate against performing medical assistance to anybody.
This goes beyond your community and if you weren’t so selfish yourself you could see that
WHY would you want to be considered a doctor if you can choose who NOT to help? That would be like the postman skipping your house due to a rainbow flag hanging on the porch.
Don’t get upset now because so many of you who are LGBTQ….love to vote republican. Funny this any other act the republicans propose won’t deter you from voting republican again.
I could not agree more. Trump and his assortment of hateful ass kissers actually got tons of support from gay men and women. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.
The ability to refuse treatment to anyone, on the basis of personal objections, is an option that, by its nature, is inimical to the very foundation of medicine: service to humanity, without bias or exception. Any reservation invalidates the oath. A medical person gives up the option of distinction, as, in any profession requiring an oath and certification and reviewable licensing, the oath supplants salary or personal preferences, laying a higher obligation, self-denial, upon the subscriber. There is no way that attitudes permitted in general medicine would not carry over into emergency medicine. I believe that the AMA and other… Read more »
Remember:
When a Physician takes the oath, the Physician promises to do no harm!
Any physician who took/takes his oath proudly and assuredly, would never refuse a patient. Only those who practice for money or for pride would refuse a patient based on things outside the domain of the physician.
The physician can refuse a “House-call” and to recommend a hospital visit, but the refusal is offset by the patient’s option. No harm is done to the patient; the harm is done to the physician as he/she betrays the very cornerstone of a physician’s “Raise de Etre.”
“It may be good if the United States revoked the licenses of everyone who practiced that discrimination” so are you saying that a physician that refuses to do an abortion due to his/her beliefs also should have their licenses revoked? Isn’t your view slightly discriminatory? the solution is simple, find a different physician.
yeah, they should get their license revoked. We don'”t care about their beliefs. They are there to do their medical job for a petient. Not what they want their medical job to be based on their religion.
I love how the actual source material linked nor discussed. The actual basis of the bill is to prevent person under the age of 18 from being able to access puberty blocking drugs, hormone replacement therapies, or gender affirmation surgeries (breast implants / mastectomies , genital restructure, etc.) and blocking medicare funds from financing this. If you are ok with a confused child doing monumental changes to their entire life outlook, then you’re a genuine fucking psychopath sorry. The people that see this as ‘bad’ are headline only reading reactionaries with no actual thought processes or interest in looking further… Read more »
Why confused? Who says they are confused? I think YOU are the confused one!
Don’t you think the parents are intelligent enough to discuss these matters with their children and that strangers like you have no say in what THEY will do with THEIR lives?
Define “confused child”. Doesn’t a person know themselves BETTER than anybody else?
I don’t care/want/stand-by ‘any’ of this kind of obvious push to be able to discriminate. I think anyone needing medical help: preventive or life-saving, check-ups or physicals; should be able to get it. I think, if you have taken the oath, under it’s guidelines, you treat those in need period, otherwise, LEAVE THE PROFESSION, because, you’re NOT standing by the oath you just fucking took! If you need/want sexual reassignment, the government (ultimately tax payers) I think, should (not) have to pay for that, that is something “other,” it’s not life threatening! In terms of gay people voting against their… Read more »