During a town hall meeting in Jonesborough, Tennessee, last week, a 35-year-old woman shared a personal story about her doctor denying her prenatal care because she is unmarried.
The woman, who is withholding her name for fear of attacks on her and her family, said she went to her doctor’s office after believing she had reached the fourth week of pregnancy. When she disclosed that she was unmarried, her doctor said they would not provide her with prenatal care, citing their own personal beliefs regarding marriage and childbearing.
The woman noted in the town hall that she has been in a relationship with the same partner for 15 years. The couple already has a 13-year-old child together.
The woman is planning to travel to Virginia in order to receive the prenatal care she needs.
Speaking to independent journalist Rachel Wells, the woman recounted how she felt when her doctor denied her pregnancy care.
“Instantly, I felt my stomach drop and I knew this wasn’t right. This wasn’t okay,” the woman said.
She quickly left her doctor’s office, not wanting to “react in a place of anger,” she said, “because I felt like that was just going to support any judgment that the provider already had against me.”
“If you’re not willing to provide the best care to me, regardless of the reason, I don’t want any part of this,” the woman also recalled feeling in that moment.
In Tennessee, health care providers are allowed to deny patients care based on personal or religious beliefs due to the recently enacted Medical Ethics Defense Act. The law stipulates that:
A healthcare provider must not be required to participate in or pay for a healthcare procedure, treatment, or service that violates the conscience of the healthcare provider.
The law, which went into effect on April 24, also shields health care workers, including doctors, from any civil or criminal cases based on their decision-making.
The statute was initially proposed by Alliance Defending Freedom, a far right “religious rights” organization that also played a role in the overturn of the abortion protections within Roe v. Wade. The organization has pushed similar legislation in states across the country, attempting to use state court systems to enact “conscience laws” within those jurisdictions.
The Trump administration is also promoting “conscience rights in health care” by targeting hospitals that are simply asking workers to do their jobs. A press release from the administration published in May, for example, stated that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) was investigating a hospital for telling ultrasound technicians they could face termination if they refused to do ultrasounds for patients in abortion procedures.
Polling demonstrates that most Americans oppose these types of conscience laws. A National Women’s Law Center survey from 2022, for instance, found that 54 percent of respondents opposed the idea of allowing hospitals to legally refuse abortion care based on religious objections, and 57 percent opposed the concept as it applied to individuals working in health care.
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