CT Public Health Committee Advances Bill to Protect Doctors Providing Reproductive Health Care Information to Patients
HB 5424 would protect providers from professional repercussions for providing medically accurate abortion information and referrals
HARTFORD (March 20, 2024) —The Public Health Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly voted today to advance H.B. 5424. This legislation would prohibit health care institutions, like religiously-affiliated hospitals, from discharging, demoting, suspending, disciplining, or otherwise discriminating against a health care provider who offers health information or counseling to a patient that goes against an institution’s religious or conscientious objections. This would protect providers’ ability to offer information, counseling, or referrals for abortion care, contraceptive counseling and access, tubal ligations or vasectomies, miscarriage treatment, gender-affirming care, and more.
“Connecticut has taken great strides to protect providers and expand access to reproductive health care, but we know that in a post-Roe world, there is more we must do to ensure that every person is able to obtain the care they want and need, when they want and need it,” said Liz Gustafson, Connecticut State Director of Reproductive Equity Now. “Federal refusal laws and policies that inhibit providers’ ability to follow clinical guidelines and provide medically-accurate information, counseling, or relevant referrals to their patients undermines the patient-provider relationship, and undermines individuals’ agency when making decisions about their health.
"We’re grateful that the Public Health Committee has voted favorably and passed H.B. 5424 out of committee, as this legislation will work to mitigate the harmful impacts of refusal laws, and ensure that providers are able to empower their patients with the tools to make fully informed health care decisions.”
Federal religious refusal laws allow any provider, health care professional, or health care institution involved in patient care to refuse that care based on religious, moral, or conscientious objection. Providers can also face discipline, reprisal, or other discriminatory action by their employer for simply giving their patients medically accurate information about their health and where they can access care. These directives, which not only prohibit the provision of, or referral for, most reproductive health care services, but also serve to stigmatize and shame individuals who decide to seek abortion care, can result in the denial of life-saving, compassionate care that can be vital throughout a patient’s reproductive life.
Across the country, there are approximately 600 Catholic general hospitals, and four of the ten largest U.S. hospital chains, ranked by number of beds, are Catholic. In Connecticut, this includes Trinity Health, which operates St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Saint Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford Springs, and Mount Sinai Rehabilitation Hospital in Hartford. As of 2016, these four Catholic hospitals comprised 17.7% of all hospital beds in Connecticut, and in 2023 attended 3,167 births. Medicare and Medicaid enrollees comprise over 65% of their total patient admissions.
Connecticut residents have already expressed concern that potential hospital mergers and acquisitions by Catholic health care institutions may impact the availability of reproductive health care in their communities and across the state, especially in rural areas.
Patients seeking abortion care can visit Reproductive Equity Now’s New England Abortion Care Guide to find clinics and hospitals that provide abortion care.
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