WASHINGTON, D.C, Jan. 18, 2018—Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, commented on today’s HHS Announcement to form a new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division in the HHS Office for Civil Rights.
“Health care professionals do not put their consciences in a blind trust when they pursue medical training. The Department of Health and Human Services’ announcement of this new office to safeguard conscience protection is a welcome and positive move. I am thankful that HHS recognizes how imperiled conscience rights have been in recent years in this arena and is actively working and leading to turn the tide in the other direction. Healthcare professionals should be freed up to care for the bodies and minds of their patients not tied up by having their own consciences bound.”
The Conscience and Religious Freedom Division has been established to restore federal enforcement of the nation’s laws that protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom.
The announcement took place at an event at HHS headquarters from 10:30-noon ET.
The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest Protestant denomination with more than 15.2 million members in over 46,000 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBC’s ethics, religious liberty and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tenn., and Washington, D.C.
