GET ME REWRITE: South Carolina law allows health care providers to do harm to patients

 

Headline:  NPR, 6/21/21022

The new law lets health care providers refuse nonemergency care that conflicts with their religious, moral or ethical beliefs. Supporters say it protects doctors, nurses and medical students from being forced to violate their conscience.  However, critics call the law a license to discriminate, especially against LGBTQ people. 

"This is America, where you should have the freedom to say no to something you don't believe in," says South Carolina state Sen. Larry Grooms, who championed the law. 

The law gives medical practitioners the freedom to refuse any nonemergency service they object to morally, such as family planning, end-of-life care or prescribing medication. Grooms insists the bill does not discriminate, explaining, "It's based on procedure, not on patients." 

But Ivy Hill, the community health program director for the LGBTQ rights group Campaign for Southern Equality, says you can't separate a person from the medical procedure that the person needs.

Larry Grooms has already shown his true colors.  In 2015, he was the primary sponsor of a bill to outlaw gay marriage in South Carolina.