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Texas Senate Bill 619, sponsored by Rep. Tom Oliverson and Sen. Kevin Sparks, passed through the Senate in May and is now before the House committee.
The bill was authored by Sen. Bryan Hughes, and would allow healthcare professionals to refuse to provide certain services to individual patients based on “severely held moral convictions,” according to the Dallas Voice. The bill defines “conscience” as anything related to faith, moral philosophy, and other ethical provisions, allowing healthcare workers to practice religious freedoms while at work for the first time in recent history. (MORE POLLS: Will more laws have to be written to protect parents from state overreach?)
There are exceptions within the language for emergency care and other life-threatening and life-sustaining treatments. “A physician or health care provider may not be held civilly or criminally liable because the physician or health care provider declines to participate in a health care service wholly or partly for reasons of conscience,” the bill reads, adding that any institution that engages in the training of medical professionals must also respect these situations.
Read The Bill Text In Full
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