San Francisco Sues to Block Trump/Pence Health Care 'Conscience Rule'

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera with Deputy City Attorney Sara Eisenberg.

As noted many times on this blog, Donald Trump's - a/k/a Der Trumpenführer - most loyal supporters are evangelical Christians.  Why?  Because he has promised to support their desire to harm and discriminate against those who do not subscribe to their Bronze Age beliefs and general hatred of others who are different from themselves. Among those they hate the most are gays, although the list of targeted individuals includes racial minorities, non-Christians, women seeking to control their own bodies, and anyone who challenges the Christofascists' perceived right to be above the law when it comes to non-discrimination laws.  Freedom of religion which the Founding Fathers viewed as (i) freedom to worship as one chose, and (ii) freedom from having to pay taxes to support an official state church has now become a smoke screen for hate and bigotry as long as one bases their cruelty on "sincerely held religious belief."  The Trump/Pence regime's "conscience rule" announced this week would put right wing Christians completely above the law while endangering the health and lives of other citizens.  Thankfully, the city of San Francisco has sued to block this vile license to discriminate and hopefully other cities and states will join in opposing this dangerous special right for Christian extremists (Mark Herring, are you paying attention?).  The Advocate looks at why San Francisco has taken action.  Here are highlights:

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration’s new “conscience rule” that allows health care providers to opt out of procedures to which they have religious or moral objections.

The final version of the rule, announced by the administration Thursday, stands to jeopardize care for LGBTQ people, women seeking reproductive health care, and many others, according to Herrera and others who oppose it.

“At its core, this rule is about denying people medical care,” Herrera said in a press release. “This administration is willing to sacrifice patients’ health and lives — particularly those of women, members of the LGBTQ community, and low-income families — to score right-wing political points. It’s reprehensible." "People’s health should not be a political football," he continued.  

Herrera filed the suit Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, within hours of the final rule’s release. It appears to be the first lawsuit challenging the measure.

The Department of Health and Human Services says the rule simply assures the implementation of existing conscience protections for health care workers. But the San Francisco suit contends it goes much farther.

“The rule is so broad it applies not just to doctors and nurses, but anyone even tangentially related to health care, like receptionists,” Herrera’s press release notes. “Schedulers, for example, could refuse to schedule appointments for LGBTQ patients or a woman seeking information about an abortion, with potentially devastating impacts on the patients’ health or lives."

Herrera notes that this new regulation could potentially have employers facing a discrimination lawsuit if they do not agree with a health care worker's beliefs. 

"If San Francisco sought to address the situation by transferring the staff person to another assignment so their professional role did not conflict with their personal beliefs, that could be considered ‘discrimination’ against the staffer under the new federal rule," he adds.  

Noncompliance with the rule will result in loss of federal funding. San Francisco, for instance, risks losing nearly $1 billion a year in funding from Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs, according to the city attorney.

Herrera’s lawsuit seeks to not only have the rule declared unconstitutional but also seeks a court order preventing the new rule from taking effect, which is set to happen within 60 days.