HHS Forms Conscience and Religious Freedom Division

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has formed a new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division in the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to restore federal enforcement of U.S. laws that protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom. The new division will provide HHS with the focus it needs to more vigorously and effectively enforce existing laws protecting these rights. “Laws protecting religious freedom and conscience are just empty words on paper if they aren’t enforced,” said OCR Director Roger Severino. “No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one’s deepest moral and religious convictions, and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice. For too long, governments big and small have treated conscience claims with hostility instead of protection, but change is coming and it begins here and now.”