Bill to Allow Arkansas Doctors to Refuse Patients for Moral Reasons

The Arkansas Traveler - news









Following the Arkansas Supreme Court’s ruling that the same anti-discriminatory laws must be implemented statewide, two organizations collaborated to author and introduce House Bill 1628, the Healthcare Freedom of Conscience Act, which would allow health care providers to refuse treatment to patients because of a violation of conscience.











Sponsored by Rep. Brandt Smith (R), Sens. Jason Rapert (R) and Linda Collins-Smith (R), HB 1628 states that its purpose is to protect physicians, health care institutions and health care providers from providing treatment to any patient if the treatment or procedure violates their consciences.






Opponents of the bill largely consist of members of the LGBT community and assert that it is a tactic employed to further discriminate against people because of their gender identity and sexual orientation.





At a transgender march on Dickson Street on March 4, Andrew Kohler, a member of faculty for the UA Music Department, expressed his discontent with the bill.





“I am glad conscience is more important than the life of a patient; any doctor that would refuse treatment could have chosen a different profession,” Kohler said.





HB 1628 defines the term conscience as the religious, moral or ethical principles, of a health care professional, institution or insurance company, and conscience can also “determined by reference to existing or proposed religious, moral, or ethical guidelines, mission statements, constitutions, bylaws, articles of incorporation, regulations or other relevant documents.”





Furthermore, this is the second piece of  legislature introduced to the Arkansas House of Representatives regarding the protection of conscience.





Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act on April 2, 2015. Also known as the Conscience Protection Act, this law allowed for the refusal of various services to be provided on the basis of religious ideology and called for an increased level of scrutiny in cases involving religious beliefs.





The primary talking point for the opposition of this bill was that it would ...


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