Nebraska lawmakers are considering a bill that would permit medical providers, institutions, and insurers to deny certain medical treatments based on their religious, ethical, or moral convictions, joining other conservative states in doing so. The measure, which is backed by Sen. Dave Murman, covers a broad range of medical professionals, including nurses, pharmacists, mental health counselors, and nursing home staff. It enables them to refuse non-emergency procedures, including gender-affirming hormone treatments, abortions, and prescription of birth control, based on moral or religious grounds.
Critics say the bill is merely a means of targeting abortion rights and the LGBTQ community. The bill includes almost three pages of language that protects providers from lawsuits, criminal charges, and professional ethics charges when they object to providing treatment. The bill would also allow clinics, hospitals, and medical practices to decline treatment based on their moral objections and permit businesses and health insurance companies to refuse to pay for treatment for the same reasons. However, according to Murman, the measure does not provide a blank cheque to those providers to discriminate against patients.
In Montana, a similar bill is under consideration, and Arkansas passed its own medical conscientious objection law in 2021. Idaho’s bill, widely seen as targeting LGBTQ residents, would enable mental health therapists and counselors to refuse to treat clients if the client’s goals or behaviors conflict with the therapist’s “sincerely held principles.” On Friday, at a hearing for the bill before the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, Jane Seu, legal and policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, was among those who opposed the Nebraska bill. The ACLU counsel stated that the bill would “provide an unbridled license to health care professionals to discriminate against their patients for almost any reason.”
