Home Christian News New HHS Rule Would Violate Conscience Rights, Foes Say

New HHS Rule Would Violate Conscience Rights, Foes Say

In a release announcing the proposed rule, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said, “Health care should be a right not dependent on looks, location, love, language, or the type of care someone needs.”

Advocates for gay and transgender rights, as well as abortion rights, commended the HHS proposal.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the rule “is particularly essential as attacks on people seeking abortions – as well as trans people – have significantly escalated in recent months.”

In announcing the proposed rule, HHS said it is consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that ruled nondiscrimination protections in federal workplace law apply to gay and transgender employees.

The HHS proposal builds on its May 2021 announcement that it would interpret federal law banning sex discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity.

Sexual orientation includes homosexuality, bisexuality and pansexuality. In its May 2021 redefinition, HHS described gender identity as “an individual’s internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither or a combination of male and female, and which may be different from an individual’s sex assigned at birth.”

The Trump administration had issued a rule in 2020 that rescinded the Obama-era policy by returning to the ordinary interpretation of the word “sex.”

The proposed HHS rule is the latest in a series of actions by the Biden administration during its 18 months in office to support abortion access and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer rights. These include executive orders by President Biden regarding both matters.

A public comment period of 60 days will be open on the proposed regulation.

This article originally appeared on BaptistPress.com.