ID H0028

Health care professionals cannot be required to provide services violating their conscience, including abortions, abortifacient drugs, embryonic stem cell research, embryo cloning, or end-of-life treatments.

Employers must reasonably accommodate employees' conscience rights upon receipt of advanced written notice, and cannot discriminate against health care professionals for declining services that violate their conscience unless accommodation poses undue hardship.

Health care professionals and employers are not civilly, criminally, or administratively liable for refusing services based on conscience, except in life-threatening emergencies with no other available provider.

Conscience protections do not permit refusal of care based on patient characteristics (race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, national origin) and do not allow professionals to refuse following patient or physician directions under the Medical Consent and Natural Death Act.

In life-threatening situations where no other capable provider is available, a health care professional invoking conscience rights must provide treatment until an alternate provider can be found.