Press Release Arizona
Press Release
NARAL Pro-Choice America Celebrates as Biden Administration Moves to Rescind Trump-Era Denial of Care Policy
For Immediate Release: Thursday, December 29, 2022
Contact: [email protected]
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Moves to Rescind Trump-Era Rule That Sought to Undermine Reproductive Freedom
Washington, DC — Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a proposed rule to rescind the Trump administration’s attempt to dramatically expand harmful refusal of care laws.
NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju released the following statement in response:
“We are grateful to the Biden administration for acting to roll back this harmful Trump-era refusal of care rule. As we face this crisis of care, removing barriers to care and ensuring patients’ health and well-being come first is more important than ever. This action is a critical step towards ensuring that nobody is denied care or discriminated against because of another person’s ideological beliefs.”
Denial of care policies allow a broad range of individuals and institutions—including hospitals, individual health care providers, and insurance companies—to deny people access to the care they need, including abortion and gender-affirming care. This disproportionately harms those who already face systemic barriers to care—including women; Black, Latina/x, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous people; those working to make ends meet; the LGBTQ+ community; immigrants; young people; those living in rural communities; people with disabilities, and other historically oppressed communities. The Trump administration’s refusal of care rule sought to illegally expand existing harmful federal laws by allowing virtually any individual or entity involved in patient care to put personal ideology ahead of a patient’s health and safety. Under the Trump rule, which was blocked by the courts, even those not directly involved in providing patient care could invoke personal ideology to refuse to do their jobs and deny patients access to care.
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For over 50 years, NARAL Pro-Choice America has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for every body. NARAL is powered by its 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.