Conservative groups hailed the initiative as being a recognition of religious objections to abortion, sterilization, physician assisted suicide, and gender surgery and hormone treatments. Critics warned that the change could lead to sex, orientation, and gender identity discrimination.

The introductory information in the proposed regulation refers to abortion, sterilization, assisted suicide, and the ACA’s individual mandate, “and other matters of conscience.” It also refers to “conscience protections” for objections to counseling, advance directives, compulsory health care in areas such as vaccination, occupational illness testing, hearing screening and mental health treatment, and to “protections for religious nonmedical health care.” The rulemaking document also cites, as an example for the need for the rule, the following:

“In 2016, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) reaffirmed a prior ethics opinion that recommended, “[i]n an emergency in which referral is not possible or might negatively affect a patient’s physical or mental health, providers have an obligation to provide medically  indicated and requested care regardless of the provider’s personal moral objections.”

The publication date for the proposed rule will be January 26, 2018, which will mark the beginning of the period for public comment.