CBN - Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a bill Friday protecting the right of medical practitioners to refuse to perform medical activities that would violate their religious or moral objections.
Hutchinson enacted SB289, The Medical Ethics and Diversity Act, which allows health care professionals to deny any non-emergency services to patients according to their conscience. In other words, doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals would not be forced to be involved in procedures like abortion-on-demand or transgender surgeries if they object to them.
More broadly, it also safeguards health care institutions from "discrimination, punishment, or retaliation as a result of any instance of conscientious medical objection."
The governor issued the following statement on Friday after signing the new legislation.
"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. 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." .... READ MORE
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