Nurses and the communities we serve demand the right to health care without discrimination. This is a central part of our nurse practice acts, state-by-state, and we call on the U.S. Congress to pass legislation to prevent the Health and Human Services (HHS) from implementing policies designed to give healthcare workers the unprofessional right to discriminate.

The newly created "Conscience and Religious Freedom Division" of HHS is inviting health care workers to deny care for certain patients.*

For example, a nurse might cite a religious objection to caring for a transgender person or refuse to include the spouse of a gay or lesbian person while planning care. This is wrong because:

• Healthcare workers’ unions and management all agree that all patients deserve quality care free from discrimination
• Millions of healthcare workers of every religion and no religion work together every day without incident
• Religious and professional codes alike forbid discrimination
• Hate has no place in our healthcare system

We demand that Congress direct the Office of Civil Rights of HHS to disband the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division and instead work to eliminate bias in healthcare.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”