Trump Threatens LGBT Healthcare

Now that Alabama is resolved let’s not get complacent. The Fenway Institute in Boston, MA has released a new policy brief that examines the potential impact of recent executive actions taken by the Trump-Pence Administration that articulate a right to refuse services to others on the basis of religious beliefs & to refuse to hire people for programming paid for with federal funds based on religious beliefs. These actions include President Trump’s May executive order, an October memo from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an amicus curiae brief in the Masterpiece Cake Shop case now before the U.S. Supreme Court & documents published this fall by the U.S. Department of Human Services. The report concludes that these executive branch actions are likely to result in discrimination against LGBT people in health care & at the hands of social service providers, private businesses & government officials. Sean Cahill, Director of Health Policy Research at The Fenway Institute at Fenway Health stated, “Under this definition of free exercise of religion, doctors could refuse to treat LGBT people & social service providers could refuse to provide services to LGBT people based on religious objection. These orders & memos take the concept of religious freedom & turn it on its head. True religious freedom protects an individual’s right to worship or not & harms no one. But these new measures are designed so that government employees & healthcare providers can deny service or treatment to LGBT people as a group by claiming that providing such service or treatment would violate their religious beliefs or sincerely held principles.”
For More Info: fenwayhealth.org
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