Sponsors (24)
The bill broadens legal and funding protections for providers and insurers to refuse or omit services on religious or moral grounds—strengthening conscience rights and legal remedies for those providers—while increasing the risk that many patients (particularly low-income, uninsured, or geographically isolated individuals) will face reduced access, higher out-of-pocket costs, and greater public and private litigation costs.
Hospitals, clinicians, clinics, and faith-based providers can refuse to provide or cover services (including abortions) that conflict with their religious or moral beliefs while keeping access to federal funding and avoiding federal penalties.
Providers and other entities get stronger, faster legal remedies: a private right of action, the ability to seek injunctions and damages, and the ability to sue without exhausting administrative remedies, plus a centralized HHS (OCR) enforcement mechanism to handle conscience complaints.
Insurers and plan sponsors who decline to include abortion coverage are protected from losing federal support or being sanctioned for that choice.
Patients — especially uninsured people, Medicaid beneficiaries, and those with chronic conditions — may lose timely access to abortion and other medical services in areas served by providers or plans that refuse care on conscience grounds, forcing travel, delay, or forgone care.
Hospitals, insurers, state and local governments, and taxpayers could face substantially more litigation, damages exposure, and administrative enforcement costs as private suits and government enforcement increase.
Patients who need abortion care may face higher out-of-pocket costs or reduced coverage options because plans and sponsors protected by the bill can omit abortion coverage.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits federal penalties or discrimination against health-care entities that decline to provide or cover abortions and creates HHS enforcement and a private right to sue for violations.
Introduced May 14, 2025 by James Lankford · Last progress May 14, 2025
Prohibits the federal government and any recipient of federal health-care funds from penalizing, retaliating against, or discriminating against health-care entities that refuse to provide, pay for, cover, refer to, or facilitate abortions because of religious, moral, ethical, or medical objections. It defines a broad class of "health care entities," creates new HHS enforcement authority and investigation duties, and establishes a private and government right of action to sue for violations. The bill also preserves voluntary participation in abortion services and includes a severability clause.