Oklahoma and Utah are among the latest states with proposed legislation that would allow health care providers to refuse specific procedures, care or medication based on vaguely defined moral, religious or conscientious beliefs.
So-called “conscientious objection” laws are not entirely new; they arose after passage of Roe v. Wade 50 years ago. What’s new today is the ill-defined scope of the bills that do not address just one procedure — such as abortion — but protect anything a care provider says violates their beliefs.
In both Oklahoma and Utah, no specific medical procedures or types of care are named in the similar bills. That means health care providers or even health care institutions or insurance companies could refuse to offer routine services such as STD testing, gender care, hormone therapies, prescribe antidepressants and birth control or administer vaccines.
Oklahoma Voice reports House Bill 1224, sponsored by Republican Rep. Kevin West, moved through the Health and Human Services Oversight Committee Monday on a narrow 7-6 vote with bipartisan opposition.
Thirty health care providers gathered at the Capitol to advocate against the bill.
Oklahoma Voice reported that Democratic Rep. Trish Ranson asked West if his legislation could allow a pharmacist, or in theory an entire pharmacy, to choose not to provide birth control to their patients if it conflicted with their religious beliefs.
West said it could if they were refusing to provide it to every patient, not just a select few.
“Anything from abortion, to transgender (care), to vaccines, to medical cannabis, there’s probably a laundry list of things that could come under consideration for it.”
A similar question and answer happened in Utah, where Senate Bill 320 is advocated by Republican Sen. Evan Vickers.
Salt Lake City’s ABC-4 News reported Vickers was asked if the bill would allow a doctor to deny a patient access to birth control because of a moral objection. Vickers said yes. “Anything from abortion, to transgender (care), to vaccines, to medical cannabis, there’s probably a laundry list of things that could come under consideration for it.”
In Oklahoma, House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, a Democrat, said continuing to “criminalize” physicians and health care providers will not encourage them to stay and will instead push them out of state when Oklahoma already has some of the poorest health care outcomes in the country.
“We just had a conversation last week about the … maternal health care deserts in the state, and we know that most of what we’re talking about here is abortion, gender-affirming care, those types of procedures and services,” she said. “And so where will Oklahomans go, even if it’s just a handful of people who need care, if there’s truly no access, if people decide to take this law and say, ‘I’m not going to provide a procedure or service because it goes against my conscience?’ Where will Oklahomans go?”
Angela Hawkins, chair of the Oklahoma section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told Oklahoma Voice she disputes the bill’s sponsor’s claim that physicians favor his bill.
“Contrary to his statement that physicians welcome this bill, they don’t, and the debate discussing how it will affect patients is true,” she said. “It will limit care for some patients, and not just in relation to abortion or gender-affirming care. You have people who will have decreased access to contraception, even decreased access potentially to mental health services.”
Having passed through committee, the Oklahoma bill now heads to the full House for consideration, if House leaders schedule it.
Utah’s bill has not yet made it through committee.
A similar bill introduced in Colorado has been placed on indefinite hold in committee.
In 2008, U.S. President George W. Bush promulgated a Right of Conscience Rule, allowing health care workers to refuse care based on their personal beliefs. In February 2011, President Barack Obama rescinded the rule.