House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has
criticized the Trump administration's “conscience rule” for
health care providers, saying it “greenlights” discrimination
against LGBT Americans.
President Donald Trump announced the
rule during a National Day of Prayer speech he delivered in the White
House Rose Garden. A final version was announced on Thursday.
The Trump administration claims the
rule is needed to protect healthcare providers who object to certain
procedures from discrimination.
“[The rule] protects individuals and
health care entities from discrimination on the basis of their
exercise of conscience in HHS-funded programs,” the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights said in a
statement.
In a statement released Thursday,
Pelosi described the move as an attack on LGBT Americans.
“These bigoted rules are immoral,
deeply discriminatory and downright deadly, greenlighting open
discrimination in health care against LGTBQ Americans and directly
threatening the well-being of millions,” Pelosi said. “Make no
mistake: this is an open license to discriminate against Americans
who already face serious, systemic discrimination.”
“Since Day One, this Administration
has waged a cruel campaign of intolerance and discrimination
targeting the civil rights of our most vulnerable communities. House
Democrats fully, flatly reject these attacks on LGBTQ Americans and
on the rights of all Americans to get the health care they need and
will fight these hateful actions,” she continued.
LGBT legal group Lambda Legal called
the move “nothing more or less than a government-sanctioned attack
on LGBTQ people and on women seeking reproductive health care.”