HHS proposal would roll back conscience rights, ERLC says

 By Tom Strode - Posted at Baptist Press:

WASHINGTON (BP) – A proposed regulation regarding conscience protections actually would result in fewer safeguards for the right of Americans to act according to their beliefs, a Southern Baptist entity has told the Biden administration.

The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) filed public comments Monday (March 6) with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about its proposed revision of a Trump-era rule issued to protect conscience rights. The proposal would reduce the enforcement of such rights and of the federal laws on which they are based, the ERLC told HHS.

“Though this regulation is touted as a move towards ‘balance,’ it does not balance so much as tilt the scales toward the preferred position of the Biden administration — expanding access to abortion and gender-affirming care at the expense of conscience rights,” said Hannah Daniel, the ERLC’s policy manager, in written comments for Baptist Press.

“Southern Baptists have long rejected this sort of action and have decried the repeated attempts of government to trample on the consciences of faithful Christians serving in the medical field,” she said.

“Through stripping away any real enforcement of the conscience rights already codified into law, this rule is severely weakening the protections they offer. As our comments argued, ‘a failure to enforce the law undermines the very rights enshrined in those laws.’”

The ERLC also has objected to other HHS actions under President Biden that it said undermined freedom of religion and conscience. In October, the commission filed public comments protesting a proposed HHS regulation it said would violate the consciences of individuals and entities that object to performing or insuring gender-transition procedures and abortions.

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