Trump to Protect Health Workers’ Religious Liberty
Health & Human Services Department Office of Civil Rights Director Roger Severino said he was ready to protect the religious convictions of American health care workers through the new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division.
January 18, 2018
President Donald Trump is again following through on his promise to protect religious liberty through the creation of the Health & Human Services Department’s new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division.
The new division will be an arm of HHS’s Office for Civil Rights. According to a statement announcing the new office’s creation, its mission is to “restore federal enforcement of our nation’s laws that protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom.”
Acting Secretary Eric D. Hargan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), and Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) took part in the announcement ceremony. The OCR’s Director Roger Severino also spoke, saying:
“Laws protecting religious freedom and conscience rights are just empty words on paper if they aren’t enforced. No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one’s deepest moral or religious convictions, and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice. For too long, governments big and small have treated conscience claims with hostility instead of protection, but change is coming and it begins here and now.”
The announcement precedes Sanctity of Life Sunday, which promotes protecting the lives of the unborn. The new division will be responsible for ensuring the rights of health care workers who refuse to participate in the practice of abortion are protected.
Monday will be the 45th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
The division’s mission will extend well beyond the abortion issue, and will likely involve other controversial and unbiblical medical procedures. These would include hormone therapies and “gender reassignment” surgery for “transgender” people.
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