Letter Regarding Rescission Proposal — RIN 0991-AB49 Department of Health and Human Services — Proposed Rule

In 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) adopted new regulations, claiming they were needed to protect employees of organizations receiving HHS funds from having to engage in activities they find religiously or morally objectionable.

But well-established protections against discrimination based on religious belief already existed and the new regulations are harmful. These broad and vague regulations put LGBT people and people with HIV at risk by seeming to allow health care providers to refuse to treat them in a medically sound, respectful manner.

Following the agency's early 2009 proposal to rescind the regulations Lambda Legal, along with the National Coalition for LGBT Health and 36 other groups, sent a letter in support, explaining that the regulations, if kept, would continue to endanger public health by causing confusion in matters ranging from who receives care to which organizations can receive federal funding.