In 2016, California passed a law that prohibits “state-funded travel to states that discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.” Ohio just became the 18th state that CA has banned state travel to because of a new law they passed that allows medical professionals to deny treatment to patients based on religious or moral grounds. The ban will take place on September 30, 2021.
Ohio’s MAGAt controlled legislature buried “the provision into a massive budget bill, House Bill 110, they recently passed and Governor DeWine signed into law. Not only does the language give doctors the right to discriminate against the LGBTQ Community, but language in law extends to “counselors, social workers, researchers, pharmacists and others to deny services if they have a ‘conscience-based objection’ to the specific service requested.” Insurance companies will also get to deny payment “for services on the same grounds.”
“Whether it’s denying a prescription for medication that prevents the spread of HIV, refusing to provide gender-affirming care, or undermining a woman’s right to choose, HB 110 unnecessarily puts the health of Americans at risk,” CA Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said in the news release.
But, there is a provision in Ohio’s, new Right to Discriminate law:
“When possible and when the medical practitioner is willing, the medical practitioner shall seek to transfer the patient to a colleague who will provide the requested health care service.”
And, the legislature was quite ‘mindful’ when they designated that emergency treatment didn’t qualify for the objections.
States CA has already banned include: Arkansas, Florida, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia, Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
