The new Hypocrite's Oath for practicing medicine in Montana has moved one step closer to being the law of the State.
From LGBTQ Nation (citing the Montana Free Press):
Montana’s Republican-led state House has approved a so-called “medical conscience bill” that would allow medical providers to refuse services based on “ethical, moral, or religious beliefs or principles,” even in emergencies. The bill now requires a third House vote before proceeding to the state’s Republican-led Senate.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Amy Regier (R), has specifically said she authored it to allow medical professionals to refuse abortions, medical marijuana, physician-assisted euthanasia, and gender-affirming care for transgender people, all things that Regier called “lifestyle and elective procedures" ...
Regier promises that her bill, known as H.B. 303: Implement Medical Ethics and Diversity Act, would only apply to “narrow circumstances” and wouldn’t lead to large-scale discrimination against LGBTQ+ patients.
However, the bill’s text says that it would allow basically any individual involved in healthcare to refuse services. These individuals include any healthcare employees, doctors, nurses, aides, pharmacy workers, medical and mental health school members, lab techs, board members, insurers, other payers, “or any other person who facilitates or participates in a healthcare service.”
In short, this means that anyone involved in the chain of care could refuse to provide services for anyone or anything they object to. This means that any marginalized person will have to worry that any part of their care could be interrupted at any point by anybody, based on an undefined notion of “conscious.”
The bill says that objecting individuals cannot be disciplined for “engaging in speech or expressive activity protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution” unless a health department or board proves “beyond a reasonable doubt that the medical practitioner’s speech was the direct cause of physical harm to a person.”
Put another way, any medical-related worker could possibly express discriminated viewpoints to patients, and the groups that work with those workers couldn’t reprimand them for it without undergoing a long and arduous process.
I am tempted to focus here on the ability to refuse treatment as the most important part of this legislation. After all, if I work in the hospital pharmacy and conscientiously believe that certain types of people should have suffering inflicted upon them to warn them of God's impending damnation of their souls, I would have the right to refuse to fill a prescription for their pain medications. If I am a devout Catholic surgeon who believes that all forms of birth control are morally wrong, I can work in a public hospital and refuse to do vasectomies or tubal ligations because, you know, sterilization is wrong and my Hypocrite's Oath permits me to deny care.
But I don't honestly think that's the worst part of this legislation.
