(FW) – A number of states and municipalities are suing the federal government in an attempt to prevent the enacting of a new rule that would allow clinicians to refuse abortions on religious grounds. The sprawling lawsuit, lodged in Manhattan, requested that the judge rules the provision unconstitutional and demanded that it be blocked immediately. The Department of Health and Human Services insists, however, that the law means that doctors are not forced to go against their religion and good conscience in providing the option to end life.
Of those who have launched a legal challenge against the law, San Francisco was the quickest to the docket — the city issued legal proceedings just hours after President Trump announced the new law in the White House Rose Garden on May 2. The provision is set to come into force in July. Though lawyers representing the federal government have yet to comment on the massive, multi-state lawsuit, New York Attorney General Letitia James insisted that the challenge aims to stop the federal government from “giving health care providers free license to openly discriminate and refuse care to patients,” according to Fox News. READ MORE