Senate passes bill on religious beliefs

BOISE — A bill that would mean health care workers can’t be required to provide services that violate their ethical, moral or religious beliefs passed the Idaho Senate.

On Monday, senators voted 28-6 in favor of House Bill 59. Presented by Sen. Carl Bjerke, R-Coeur d’Alene, the bill is known as the Medical Ethics Defense Act.

Under the bill, providers — including doctors, nurses, psychologists and pharmacists — would not be required to participate in services such as testing, diagnosis, referrals, prescribing or administering any drug or medication that goes against their professed personal beliefs. Providers would still be required to provide emergency care, as required by federal law.

The bill also contains whistleblower protections from employer retaliation for providers who allege violations under the bill. The clause enables any provider to bring a civil lawsuit for “any violation of any provision” of the proposed law.

Bjerke said the lack of conscience freedom and “corporatization” of medical care was the reason for Idaho’s health care professional drain, referencing last year’s Senate Bill 1352, which passed last year and allowed therapists to refuse care if it violated their beliefs.

“That bill now is in law … and I look at it as kind of the precursor to what we’re doing here with House Bill 59,” Bjerke said. “This is more of an overarching, all-inclusive bill handling conscience rights of all medical providers.”

A number of physicians have told lawmakers that Idaho’s strict felony abortion ban is a main reason for doctors leaving Idaho, including in a letter to lawmakers in 2024 from OB-GYN Amelia Huntsberger.

Sen. Ron Taylor, D-Hailey, expressed concerns over the bill’s potential for harm, arguing Idaho’s already strained health care system would be worsened by the bill.

“This piece of legislation fundamentally misunderstands and confuses the relationship between personal conscience and professional duty,” Taylor said. “For our rural communities where health care access is already limited, this bill could be catastrophic. When access to medical care and your providers are limited, allowing them the opportunity to provide care based on personal beliefs isn’t protecting conscience; it’s endangering lives.”

Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, raised similar points, detailing scenarios in which the bill could have serious consequences.

“It is the law of this state that we will provide an abortion to a survivor of rape or incest, and now we’re allowing a conscionable objection telling somebody they could deny it,” Wintrow said. “Do we provide the emergency care for the 13-year-old who’s pregnant because they’ve been raped by a father, an uncle or a brother, or do we allow the physician to reject it? We put the patient in a terrible position again. This law and laws like it open the door to allow people to object to the things that we have said are allowable in law that people can access.”

Citizen testifiers against the bill previously expressed similar concerns and examples of denial of care that could be allowed under the legislation, the Idaho Press previously reported.

“This legislation will open the doors for us to find a point again in our history where you can ... trust your doctor and know that they’re telling you the truth,” Bjerke said in closing arguments. “For us to deny that they have the right to feel strongly about the things they believe … I think we’re going down a path that we don’t need to go down.”

HB 59 now heads to the governor’s desk, where it may be signed into law, vetoed or allowed to go into effect without a signature.

Schwicht may be contacted at newsroom@idahopress.com.

How they voted

Yes: Keith Markley (substitute for Cindy Carlson-R), Dan Foreman-R

Absent: Phil Hart-R