The Montana state House of Representatives has passed a bill that would allow medical providers to deny specific procedures to Transgender patients and to patients seeking reproductive care.
Sponsors of HB 303 claim that it is a measure for "preservation and protection for medical conscience." In fact, the bill would allow medical practitioners, health care facilities, and insurers to deny what the bill calls "lifestyle and elective procedures."
Among those procedures are physician aid in dying, prescribing marijuana or opioids, abortion procedures, and gender-affirming medical care for Transgender people.
The bill passed on February 6, on a more or less party-line vote, 65 to 34. One Democrat joined the Republicans supporting the measure, and four Republicans joined the opposition. The bill now must pass once more in the House, and then it goes to the Republican-controlled Senate.
Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a Democrat from Missoula, told fellow lawmakers the bill would mean Transgender people like herself could be turned away from medical services they need.
"What is actually going to happen is it will be a denial based on diagnosis. Something like, I am diagnosed with gender dysphoria," Zephyr said. "And the thing is, that is inherently discriminatory, because you cannot pass my diagnosis from who I am. To deny me based on my diagnosis of gender dysphoria is to deny me based on my being a Trans woman."
Other Democrats urged their colleagues to consider the unintended consequences of the bill. Rep. Laura Smith said she feared the measure would rob parents of their rights to seek care for their children. She related a story she'd heard from parents of a child with medical challenges, who might have been unable to get care for their child if HB 303 had been in place.
"This is just one of many examples that I receive where medical teams have tried to deny parents' rights to choose procedures for their children," Smith said. "If the bill passes, it will take away parental rights, and your constituents' parental rights, to make these life-and-death procedural and medical decisions for our own children."
Republicans said that the bill does not actually provide for refusing medical care to a patient; it only allows providers to refuse to perform certain procedures.
"To be clear, this bill would not give the right to refuse to serve a person. It would only apply to the narrow circumstances where a nurse or physician cannot conscientiously perform a specific procedure," sponsor Rep. Amy Regier said.