States Target Trump Rule Allowing Health-Care Religious Refusals

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s plan to let doctors and hospitals refuse services based on their religious beliefs or moral convictions should be scrapped without a trial or put on hold until litigation over the policy is resolved, a federal judge was told by states and cities that sued.

Evidence produced since the lawsuit was filed in May shows that the administration, in seeking to justify the rule, vastly inflated the number of complaints filed by religious health-care providers who claimed they were discriminated against or forced to provide services that violate their personal beliefs, the almost two dozen states and cities said Thursday in a court filing.

The government “falsely cites to evidence that it does not actually have,“ according to the group, which includes New York, Pennsylvania, Hawaii and Chicago.

The clash over the so-called conscience rule is emerging as a major test of Trump’s ability to broadly expand protections for religious businesses and employees who might be accused of discriminating against women, religious minorities and the LGBTQ community for refusing to provide services.

The rule will help fulfill Trump’s promise “to promote and protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious liberty,” the Department of Health and Human Services said on its website in May.

The agency’s press office didn’t immediately return a call for comment.

Read More: Trump Religious Conscience Rule Could Crumble Under Own Weight

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Steve Stroth

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