by: Sarah Hudacek, AOF Policy Assistant
A small medical conscience clause with a big impact was added at the last minute by the Senate to the state budget bill without any public hearings or opportunities for comment. The provision allows clinicians, institutions, and insurers to decline to perform or pay for health care services if those services do not align with their moral, ethical or religious beliefs.
Federal law already allows a provider to decline to provide a medical service due to objections of conscience, but compels doctors to find another physician to perform the service. This provision removes that requirement, and prevents a practitioner, institution or insurance company from facing any liability for declining to do so.
The provision casts a wide net. Doctors and nurses can decline to perform necessary procedures, lab techs can refuse to analyze test results or perform screening procedures, insurance companies can refuse to cover a procedure already performed by a doctor, a pharmacist can refuse to dispense birth control even if a patient has a valid prescription, and more.
Advocates across the state have warned that this provision would legalize discrimination against LGBTQ patients, minorities, marginalized groups such as those with substance use disorders or a sexually transmitted disease and could prevent women from accessing birth control and other family planning and reproductive health care services.
It also carries implications for Ohioans in rural communities with limited access to medical providers, or those residing in long-term care, where finding an alternate provider is easier said than done.
Despite opposition from AOF and many of our partner organizations to Governor DeWine and state legislators, the medical conscience clause survived the General Assembly’s conference committee proceedings and was not included in Governor DeWine’s 14 vetoes. This provision was enacted when the state budget bull was signed in the early hours of July 2 and is current law.
Arkansas, South Dakota and Montana have enacted similar medical conscience clause laws. In 2019, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services medical conscience clause was struck down by a U.S. District Court.
AOF will be closely monitoring any legal challenges to this harmful law and will continue advocating against it.