Though certainly not an easy task, it’s important that we stay engaged with what conservatives are pushing on the state level before hateful bills make it all the way to a governor’s desk. In an ideal world, such bills would be small potatoes, but thanks to the Republican Party’s bliss in stirring outrage over marginalized people simply existing, we have many, many heinous bills bubbling up all over the nation.
One such bill is stewing in South Carolina, as highlighted over at South Carolina United. The South Carolina state Senate passed H 4608 last week in an attempt to ban trans youth from participating in sports teams that align with their gender identity. Sadly, there is nothing surprising about this move. More recently, however, the same Senate voted to pass H 4776, misleadingly titled the “Medical Ethics and Diversity Act,” which would essentially permit medical providers, health care institutions, and insurance companies to deny care to LGBTQ+ people based on their religious, ethical, or moral beliefs, as covered by local outlet ABC News 4. If signed into law, these workers would be protected from any civil, administrative, or criminal penalties.
If all that sounds like discrimination, you’re right.
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What would this bill look like in practice if signed into law? Essentially, medical providers—including physicians and nurses, for example—would be allowed to refuse care when it comes to everything from gender-affirming health care like puberty blockers and hormonal therapy to medications for HIV, fertility treatments, and mental health services. It would even expand to contraceptives and end-of-life care.
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In terms of insurance providers, they’d be allowed to deny necessary services like PrEP and gender-affirming care. Employers would be able to do the same. In essence, if a provider wants to, they could deny care based on someone’s sexual activity (including same-sex activity); sex outside of marriage; or their identity, like being openly trans or nonbinary. This is basically a license to discriminate and harm vulnerable people—denying safe, lifesaving care to someone seeking treatment for HIV, for example, is so cruel it feels surreal to type.
This is a dire situation no matter where you live, but it’s always worth remembering that low-income folks, people who live in rural areas, and people of color may be especially hurt. Not everyone can drive across state lines to access care, for example, and especially not if that care is consistent or needed on short notice, like PrEP or an abortion.
In the big picture, this is another important example of the ways conservatives are trying to be sly and cover all of their bases when it comes to gradually taking us back in time and denying more and more rights to marginalized and vulnerable folks. To my knowledge, this bill seems to be one of the first of its kind to make it so far, and we don’t yet know what the governor will do with it. But as we’ve seen with the anti-trans sports bills overwhelming the nation, even if something isn’t immediately signed into law, its sheer existence can serve as a precedent for other folks to try the same thing.
The bill, which passed in the state House back in March, now moves to the desk of Republican Gov. Henry McMaster.
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