We are all aware of the many horrendous laws passed in the past few years by Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis: new laws to ban drag shows, deny gender-affirming care, outlaw abortions after six weeks, the stop-WOKE law, the “don’t say gay” law, and on and on and on. One terrible, discriminatory bill passed by the Republican legislature and signed into law by DeSantis in May isn’t getting much attention from the media, and DeSantis doesn’t seem to talk about it. But it’s near the top of the list of reasons why me and my husband are leaving Florida: the “Protections of Medical Conscience” law.
The new law, which took effect on July 1, allows Florida health care providers and payors to refuse services due to a "conscience-based objection,” which the law defines as anything based on "a sincerely held religious, moral, or ethical belief." That could clearly include someone having a conscience-based objection to me being gay. Although the law is not intended to apply to emergency medical services, it applies to a long list of health care procedures and services, from surgery, therapy, medication and counseling to medical billing and record-keeping.
That, according to the ACLU, means a physician can refuse to provide healthcare services to Floridians based on their personal beliefs and provides full immunity from liability over any negative consequences resulting from the denial of care.
Floridians will have to fear discriminatory treatment from medical providers every time they meet a new provider, the ACLU said.
"This bill is a broad license for health care providers and insurance companies to refuse services to people," said Brandon Wolf, press secretary for Equality Florida, in a written statement. "No one should be denied access to medical care. It gives health care providers and insurance companies an unprecedented ‘religious’ or ‘moral’ right to refuse to provide services. This puts patients in harm’s way, is antithetical to the job of health care providers, and puts the most vulnerable Floridians in danger. Our state should be in the business of increasing access to medical care, not giving providers and companies a sweeping carve out of nondiscrimination laws. Shame on the governor for putting Floridians’ health at risk to score cheap, political points."
ACLU of Florida senior policy counsel Kara Gross called the bill "a state-sanctioned license to discriminate" in the provision of medical services. The ACLU has described the law as "shocking in its breadth, vagueness, and government overreach into the private sector and regulated businesses."
Republican lawmakers behind the law claimed that it had absolutely nothing to do with discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. However, the law clearly states that health care providers can't use the law to deny health care based on a patient's race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and Republican lawmakers rejected attempts by Democrats to extend those protections to gender identity and sexuality. That’s a tell right there.
According to an ACLU analysis, the law’s opt out provision will apply not just to doctors, but also to nurses, pharmacies, hospitals, mental health providers, medical transcript services, clinical lab personnel and nursing homes.
My husband and I are getting older and will be retiring in the next year or two, and as we all know health care concerns grow as one gets older. There is absolutely no way that we would feel safe and secure in a state where we’d always be concerned about being denied health care because of who we are, and there is no way that we’d go back in the closet to prevent this from happening.