San Francisco sues Trump administration, calls conscience rule a ‘perversion’ of civil rights mission

‘It should be struck down in full,’ City Attorney Dennis Herrera says

By Ariana Eunjung Cha May 3 at 2:41 PM

The city of San Francisco has filed a lawsuit alleging that a new federal rule is unconstitutional. The rule greatly expands the types of cases in which a health-care worker or entity can decline, on religious grounds, to participate in providing a service.

In a filing in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said the new regulations — announced Thursday by President Trump — are discriminatory and prioritize “providers’ religious beliefs over the health and lives of women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people, and other medically and socially vulnerable populations.”

If San Francisco does not comply, the complaint states, it could lose $1 billion in federal funding that support critical services.

The rule is a hallmark project for the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services. OCR director Roger Severino said Thursday in a conference call with reporters that the new rule is necessary because, while there are numerous religion and conscience exemption statutes on the books, they have not been as strongly enforced as other civil rights laws.

-snip-