Republican state Rep. Leslie Heinemann of Flandreau introduced legislation that would allow health care providers to refuse patients treatment due to conscience-based objections. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
Health care providers would be able to refuse to perform services for patients under a bill South Dakota lawmakers endorsed on Thursday at the Capitol in Pierre.
Lawmakers on the House of Representatives’ Health and Human Services Committee voted 8-5 to support House Bill 1153.
Rep. Leslie Heinemann, R-Flandreau, introduced the bill. He said it would allow health care providers to refuse to participate in services that violate their conscience and protect them from discrimination. Heinemann said some health care providers quit the profession or don’t pursue certain specialties “due to a lack of tolerance for their moral, ethical or religious beliefs.”
“It protects diversity of belief within the medical profession and benefits patients by protecting the supply of physicians and other medical providers within the health care system,” Heinemann said.
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Supporters suggested the legislation would apply to abortions, vaccinations and transgender surgeries, and said the bill would add protections beyond federal law or existing health care organization policies in the state.
Lobbyists representing health care systems, professional organizations, businesses and trial lawyers said the bill would lead to legal challenges, strain rural facilities and erode care for patients.
Alan Solano, vice president of governmental affairs with Monument Health, called the bill “overly broad, ill-defined and disruptive.”
Justin Smith, a lobbyist representing the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce, the South Dakota Association of Youth Care Providers and the Infectious Disease Prevention Network, said the bill “protects providers, not patients.”
“It is undisputed that this bill makes a patient’s rights and needs secondary to whatever subjective conscience principles his treater might claim,” Smith said.
Heinemann told lawmakers the exemption bill would still require providers to serve patients in emergency or life-threatening situations.
The bill heads to the House floor next.
