While the country faces so many challenges, disease, getting shots in people’s arms, climate change, high employment, etc…Red States have turned their attention to making it impossible for people to vote and denying transgender women from participating in women’s sports. On Friday, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed into law a bill that will permit doctors to refuse medical treatment to anyone because of religious or moral objections.
SB 289, Medical Ethics and Diversity Act, will permit “health care professionals to deny any non-emergency services to patients according to their ‘conscience.'” The Act will also protect healthcare professionals from punishment, any discrimination suits filed against them, and protect them from retaliation. The law will go into effect this summer.
In 2017, Hutchinson rejected a similar bill but had a change of heart when it the legislature changed the bill to exclude emergency services.
“I support this right of conscience so long as emergency care is exempted and conscience objection cannot be used to deny general health service to any class of people,” he said. “Most importantly, the federal laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, gender, and national origin continue to apply to the delivery of health care services.”
Hutchinson signed the bill one day after he signed into law the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” which prohibits transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
