1 in 8 LGBTQ People Live Where They Can Be Denied Medical Care
metroweekly.commedical professionals can legally deny service on the basis of their religious beliefs.South Carolina recently became the seventh state to permit medical professionals to decline services based on their personal religious or moral beliefs — joining the state of Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Ohio, and Illinois, reports NBC News.
According to the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that focuses on LGBTQ-related policies, with South Carolina’s addition, one-eighth of all LGBTQ people in America now live in states allowing denial of care, and preventing lawsuits from being lodged against providers who refuse to treat patients.Such policies are often approved under the auspices of “expanding religious freedom” or protecting First Amendments rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
This is especially true for transgender people, who can run afoul of such laws when they seek out gender-affirming care or reproductive health treatments.
For example, many of the laws allow nurses or doctors to refuse to perform, take part in, or even prepare a room for a procedure — be it abortion or gender confirmation surgery — to which they have personal objections.
