This week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) took a long-awaited step to provide relief to brave people of faith which will also help restore and strengthen families. The 400-page rule establishes that those working in the health care industry will no longer be targeted, persecuted, or fired for their faith. This means that hospitals cannot be forced to provide abortions, doctors cannot be required to prescribe assisted suicide drugs, and employers cannot be forced to provide insurance coverage for controversial operations. The Final Conscience Rule Protecting Health Care Entities and Individuals makes certain the government has the power to remove federal funding from violators who refuse to comply.
Roger Severino, Director of the Office of Civil Rights at HHS, declared that it is an appalling injustice for a government to "require religious organizations and hospitals to place their religious identity on the shelf when it is often their religious identity that drives them to offer their gifts to the world [like] giving free health services with love and care to those that need it most."
The official rule ensures that healthcare professionals and medical students will not be compelled to leave the practice of medicine because they decline to participate in actions such as abortion, assisted suicide, or sterilization that violate their conscience, religious belief or moral convictions. The new rule protects the rights of diverse faith-based health care institutions from participation in procedures like abortion, sterilization, or assisted suicide. Also, and importantly, the new rules will ensure that churches and others who oppose abortion are not compelled to cover elective abortion in their health plans.
These new rules not only guarantee religious freedom for individuals but will work toward strengthening and restoring families who stand for faith.
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