Sponsors (24)
Official title: Amend the Public Health Service Act to prohibit discrimination against health care entities that do not participate in abortion, and to strengthen implementation and enforcement of Federal conscience laws.
Introduced May 14, 2025 by James Lankford · Last progress May 14, 2025
The bill strengthens federal protection and private enforcement of conscience and religious refusals by providers and institutions, expanding rights for health-care workers and religious entities while trading off broader patient access to abortion-related care, greater legal uncertainty, and higher litigation and administrative costs for providers, states, and taxpayers.
Healthcare workers, religious organizations, and health-care entities gain a clear federal private right of action and enforcement pathway to defend conscience- or religion-based refusals to participate in abortions or other services, making those protections easier to enforce in court.
Clinicians, trainees, hospitals, and other recipients of federal funding are protected from federal penalties, retaliation, or loss of federal support for declining to provide or cover abortion-related services, reducing risk to grants, training positions, and federal contracts.
Patients in areas where providers or insurers choose to offer abortion retain voluntary access where available because the bill does not ban providers or insurers from offering services or coverage.
Patients—particularly low-income individuals and those in areas with few providers—could face reduced or lost access to abortion and related care because insurers, plans, or providers can lawfully refuse to provide or cover those services.
Patients who rely on employer or marketplace coverage may have fewer plan options or be forced to switch plans or travel for care if providers or insurers assert conscience-based exemptions, increasing personal costs and access burdens.
Hospitals, state and local governments, and taxpayers could face substantially increased litigation costs and damages exposure because the bill creates broad private lawsuits, damages, and attorneys' fees for alleged violations of conscience protections.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Bars federal penalties against health care entities that refuse to provide, refer for, pay for, or facilitate abortions and creates HHS enforcement plus a private right of action.
Prohibits the federal government and recipients of federal health-related funds from penalizing or discriminating against health care entities that decline to provide, refer for, pay for, sponsor, or facilitate abortions or abortion coverage on religious, moral, ethical, or medical grounds. It creates new HHS administrative enforcement authority, requires OCR to investigate complaints, authorizes termination of HHS funding for violations, and establishes a private civil cause of action allowing the Attorney General or affected parties to sue for damages, injunctive and declaratory relief, and attorneys’ fees. The bill also includes findings about perceived gaps in enforcement of existing federal conscience protections and a severability clause.