American Civil Liberties Union

With increasing frequency, we are seeing individuals and institutions attempting to claim a right to refuse to provide services or care based on religious objections.  These refusals can take many forms and the real-life impact can be devastating.

• Hospitals could refuse to perform medically necessary abortions for pregnant women in life-threatening situations. That means a hospital could leave a pregnant woman to die in its emergency room because of the religious beliefs of the hospital owners.
• A public school guidance counselor could refuse, because of his religious beliefs, to counsel a gay high-school student, denying care to a teen who may have nowhere else to go.
• A landlord could refuse to rent to a family, simply because the family is Muslim.
• Pharmacies could refuse to fill a woman’s prescription for birth control because of religious objections, placing a particular burden on women living in rural areas who may have to drive long distances just to reach another pharmacy.

Instances of institutions and individuals claiming a right to discriminate in the name of religion aren’t new. Unfortunately, we’ve seen this before. In the 1960s, we saw institutions object to laws requiring integration in restaurants because of sincerely held beliefs that God wanted the races to be separate. We saw religiously affiliated universities receiving public funding refuse to admit students who believed in interracial dating. In those cases, we recognized that requiring integration was not about violating religious liberty; it was about ensuring fairness. It is no different today.

Through litigation, advocacy and public education, the ACLU works to defend religious liberty AND protect people of all faiths from religious discrimination.

We all have a right to our religious beliefs, but this does not give us the right to use our religion to discriminate and impose those beliefs on others who do not share them.

Across the country, we are seeing a troubling trend to allow hospitals, insurance plans, pharmacies, and other health care entities to place religious beliefs over patient’s healthcare needs. These efforts can take many forms: from state and federal legislation that permits healthcare providers to refuse to offer critical health services to legal challenges that seek to carve out exemptions from laws prohibiting discrimination or protecting individual liberties.

The real-life impact of these refusals can be devastating. Lawmakers in Congress, for example, are poised to undo 30 years of federal law protecting patients’ access to emergency care. If they succeed, hospitals could refuse to perform medically necessary abortions for pregnant women in life-threatening situations. That means, a pregnant woman could be left to die in a hospital emergency room because of the religious beliefs of the hospital owners. Already, we’ve seen pharmacies object to filling requests for birth control bills, including emergency contraception, because of their religious beliefs. Such refusals can pose a particular burden on women living in rural areas who may have to drive long distances just to reach another pharmacy. And medical practices and mental health professionals have refused to treat lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patients, claiming that to provide care would violate their religious beliefs.

If we allow institutions charged with taking care of our health – hospitals, medical groups, insurance companies, and pharmacies – to refuse services because of religious beliefs, we all – regardless of our own beliefs – could face substantial and sometimes insurmountable obstacles when we seek medical care. We should not permit institutions to impose religious beliefs on their patients and thus jeopardize our health. Our laws must ensure that a patient’s health is never compromised by the religious objections of some.