Twice in the last week, the University of Vermont Medical Center received threats of federal enforcement for its supposed violation of a federal law allowing hospital employees to opt-out of abortion procedures.
There is no evidence the hospital has violated that rule.
On Wednesday, both the medical center and the Vermont Attorney General’s Office sent letters to the Department of Health and Human Services rebuking the threats and reaffirming the hospital’s compliance with the rule.
Attorney General TJ Donovan said the warnings are a “last-ditch effort by the Trump administration to restrict a woman’s access to abortion.”
The threats sent on Dec. 11 and 14 stem from a notice of violation from the federal agency’s Office of Civil Rights, sent to UVM Medical Center in August 2019. The notice alleged that the hospital had violated the “Church Amendments,” which give health care workers the right to opt out of medical procedures such as sterilizations, abortions, or blood transfusions because of religious or moral objections.
The department’s position was that employers like UVM Medical Center must allow employees to opt out of procedures at any time, regardless of the impact on patient safety.
At that time, Vermont joined 22 other cities and states in suing the federal agency for its interpretation of the Church Amendments, and in the fall of 2019, two federal district courts rejected the position staked out by the Department of Health and Human Services. The department appealed those decisions, and has been barred from enforcing its new regulations while the appeals are pending.
“As the primary tertiary care center for our region, we have an obligation to provide access to safe and legal reproductive health care to our patients who rely on us,” Dr. Stephen Leffler, president of UVM medical Center, said in a statement.
Since the hospital was first contacted by the federal agency’s Office of Civil Rights, it has updated its scheduling policies to ensure that regular, designated operating room times are used for abortions whenever possible, and are staffed only with providers who have opted into participating.
The hospital noted that these changes should eliminate the already “exceedingly rare” instances in which employees’ beliefs come into conflict with its patient care obligations.
The federal agency’s “latest threats are not just baseless from a legal standpoint, they’re an attack on reproductive care and we will do everything we can to protect our patients’ access to the services they need,” Leffler said.
Donovan said that, unlike the federal agency’s notice of violation, UVM Medical Center’s conflict of care policy presents a “reasonable balance” between honoring religious objections of employees and its obligation to provide essential health care to its predominantly rural patients.
The notice of violation, Donovan said, raises “serious constitutional concerns” and comes into conflict with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which established the separation of church and state.
Planned Parenthood Vermont Action Fund joined Donovan in backing up the Burlington hospital’s policies.
“Barriers to safe, legal abortion infringe on people’s rights and dignity, and go against every commitment we make to patients as health care providers,” said Meghan Gallagher, president of the action fund. “This latest attack on the UVM Medical Center is nothing more than a political game by a lame-duck administration.”
