Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, AGENCY NEWS—HHS OCR rescinding guidance on nondiscrimination relating to healthcare personnel and abortions, (Jan 23, 2026)
Organizations Mentioned:Public Health Service | University of Vermont
By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.
The agency’s Office of Civil Rights is also rescinding related guidance and disavowing policies and legal conclusions found in a letter from 2021 relating to the Church Amendment and undue hardship under Title VII.
In notices going into Monday’s Federal Register, the Department of Health and Human Services is announcing its rescission, repudiation, and/or disavowal of various guidance documents issued under the Biden administration relating to the Church Amendment and abortion.
Specifically, in September 2021, HHS OCR issued “Guidance on Nondiscrimination Protections under the Church Amendments” (2021 OCR Guidance) reminding recipients of certain federal funding of conscience protections for healthcare personnel related to abortion and sterilization. The Church Amendment among other things prohibits health care entities receiving funds under the Public Health Service Act from discriminating in employment or staff privileges against physicians or health care personnel who perform or assisted in the performance of lawful sterilization procedure or abortion, or who object to doing so based on religious beliefs or moral convictions.
2021 guidance rescinded. HHS OCR explains in a notice going into Monday’s Federal Register that it is rescinding the 2021 OCR Guidance under Executive Order (EO) 14182, “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment,” for several reasons. First, it contends that the 2021 OCR Guidance “narrowly focused on the rights of providers employed by certain federally funded health care entities who perform lawful abortions but failed to clarify the conscience rights of providers who are unwilling to perform abortion.” Second, it contends that the various court cases it cited to argue that “decades of precedent make clear that it is unconstitutional for a state to prohibit a patient from ending pregnancy prior to fetal viability” were impacted by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022). Third, the notice argues that the 2021 OCR Guidance promoted a misreading of EMTALA relating to abortion, relying on guidance that has since been rescinded.
Church Amendment and Title VII. In another notice going into the Federal Register, HHS OCR disavows, repudiates, and/or rescinds certain documents “in keeping with” Executive Orders 14192, Unleashing Prosperity through Deregulation and consistent with the principles in Executive Order 14219, Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Deregulatory Initiative. It has determined that “several documents previously issued by HHS no longer represent the views of the Department or this Administration or are otherwise no longer applicable,” including, among several other items, a letter sent in July 2021 to University of Vermont Medical Center in which it stated that the medical center may only have obligations to follow the Church Amendments when it does not experience an undue hardship under the framework in Title VII. “The Church Amendments do not contain any undue hardship exemption,” HHS OCR contends in the notice, adding that the “legal views stated in OCR’s 2021 letter no longer represent the views of the Department or this Administration.”
News: AgencyNews Discrimination ReligiousDiscrimination