Protect Religious Freedom of Catholic Hospitals

Catholic hospitals and Catholic health care workers are under siege and the consequences couldn’t be greater. The aim, led by abortion extremists, is to create a law that makes it possible for medical providers within a Catholic hospital to violate Catholic healthcare directives with impunity.

HB 5424 “An Act Prohibiting Adverse Actions Against Health Care Providers For Providing Certain Health Care Services” would remove the religious rights of both Catholic healthcare workers and hospitals and punish them for failing to provide abortion services or other services contrary to our faith. The Connecticut Catholic Public Affairs Conference stands strongly in opposition to HB 5424.

This proposed legislation is framed as a bill to protect access to “reproductive health care services,” and a person's right to access “gender-affirming health care services”. HB 5424 is solely aimed at Catholic hospitals in our state, which operate under ethical and moral guidelines against such services. This legislation reflects a national attack by advocates of abortion and transgender care on Catholic healthcare institutions across our country.  

HB 5424 is an effort to weaken the oversight and control Catholic hospitals must maintain over their providers to ensure compliance with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Services (ERDs), under which all Catholic hospitals operate. Under the ERDs Catholic hospitals and their staff are prohibited from performing or being any way involved in abortions, sterilization, certain fertility treatments, birth control and gender-affirming healthcare. Although many people may see the ERDs as restrictive, they are the same directives that also stress the quality of care a patient should receive within a Catholic hospital.