I 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3411 
To amend the Public Health Service Act to prohibit discrimination against 
health care entities that do not participate in abortion, and to strengthen 
implementation and enforcement of Federal conscience laws. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 14, 2025 
Mr. PFLUGER (for himself, Mr. WEBSTER of Florida, Mr. MOOLENAAR, Mr. 
CRENSHAW, Mrs. LUNA, Mr. SMITH of Nebraska, Mr. BACON, Mr. WIL-
LIAMS of Texas, Mrs. BIGGS of South Carolina, and Mr. GOSAR) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy 
and Commerce 
A BILL 
To amend the Public Health Service Act to prohibit discrimi-
nation against health care entities that do not participate 
in abortion, and to strengthen implementation and en-
forcement of Federal conscience laws. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Conscience Protection 
Act of 2025’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds as follows: 
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(1) Thomas Jefferson stated a conviction com-
mon to our Nation’s founders when he declared in 
1809 that ‘‘[n]o provision in our Constitution ought 
to be dearer to man than that which protects the 
rights of conscience against the enterprises of the 
civil authority’’. 
(2) No health care entity should have to choose 
between giving up their religious, moral, ethical, or 
medical convictions and abandoning a vital medical 
mission. Congress enacted more than two dozen pro-
visions in Federal statutes to protect such rights in 
health care, which also protect States’ ability to op-
erate in accordance with their laws to protect similar 
rights without fear of retaliation from the Federal 
Government. Such provisions of Federal statutes in-
clude— 
(A) subsections (b) through (e) of section 
401 of the Health Programs Extension Act of 
1973 (42 U.S.C. 300a–7) (commonly known, 
and referred to in this section, as the ‘‘Church 
Amendments’’); 
(B) section 245 of the Public Health Serv-
ice Act (42 U.S.C. 238n) (commonly known as 
the ‘‘Coats-Snowe Amendment’’); 
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(C) the Weldon Amendment approved by 
Congresses and Presidents of both parties every 
year since 2004 (including section 507(d) of the 
Departments of Labor, Health and Human 
Services, and Education, and Related Agencies 
Appropriations Act, 2023 (division H of the 
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (Public 
Law 117–328))); and 
(D) other conscience protections, as out-
lined in the final rule issued by the Secretary 
of Health and Human Services entitled ‘‘Pro-
tecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health 
Care; Delegations of Authority’’ (84 Fed. Reg. 
23170; May 21, 2019), under the Patient Pro-
tection and Affordable Care Act, under the So-
cial Security Act, and with respect to global 
health programs and advanced directives. 
(3) Courts have held that certain conscience 
protection statutes do not provide a ‘‘private right of 
action’’ for individuals or entities who have been dis-
criminated against, thereby leaving victims of dis-
crimination unable to defend their own conscience 
rights in court. At the same time, administrative im-
plementation and enforcement of these laws by the 
Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health 
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and Human Services have been inconsistent and at 
times cases are allowed to languish for years or pre-
viously enacted enforcement measures are aban-
doned or reversed. 
(4) Defying the Weldon Amendment, the Cali-
fornia Department of Managed Health Care has 
mandated coverage for elective abortions in all 
health plans under its jurisdiction. Other States, 
such as New York, Illinois, and Washington, have 
taken or considered similar action, and some States 
have required hospitals to provide or facilitate abor-
tions. On June 21, 2016, the Office for Civil Rights 
of the Department of Health and Human Services, 
under the Obama Administration, concluded a nearly 
2-year investigation of this matter by determining 
that the decision of California to require insurance 
plans under the California Department for Managed 
Health Care authority to cover abortion services did 
not violate the Weldon Amendment. At least 28,000 
individuals and families subsequently lost abortion- 
free health plans as a result of this mandate in vio-
lation of their consciences and rights under the 
Weldon Amendment. 
(5) On January 24, 2020, the Office for Civil 
Rights of the Department of Health and Human 
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Services disavowed its prior findings and issued a 
notice of violation of the Weldon Amendment to 
California. After the State’s continued noncompli-
ance with the Weldon Amendment, the Centers for 
Medicare & Medicaid Services, on December 16, 
2020, announced the disallowance of $200,000,000 
per quarter in Federal funds to California beginning 
in the first quarter of 2021. 
(6) Although California had taken no action to 
come into compliance with the Weldon Amendment, 
on August 13, 2021, the Office for Civil Rights of 
the Department of Health and Human Services 
under the Biden Administration withdrew the notice 
of violation and closed the complaints filed with the 
Department. As a result, individuals continue to be 
coerced contrary to law into choosing between vio-
lating their consciences or forgoing health care cov-
erage for themselves, their employees, and their fam-
ilies. 
(7)(A) On August 28, 2019, the Office for Civil 
Rights of the Department of Health and Human 
Services under the Trump Administration issued a 
notice of violation against the University of Vermont 
Medical Center for violation of the Church Amend-
ments after it was found to have scheduled approxi-
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mately 10 nurses who had registered conscience ob-
jections to abortion to assist with approximately 20 
abortion procedures and for maintaining policies 
that explicitly required employees with conscience 
objections to participate in procedures with which 
they disagreed to ‘‘ensure that patient care is not 
negatively impacted’’. Such practices were found to 
be part of an ‘‘ongoing pattern, practice, and policy 
of discriminating against health care providers who 
believe that the performance, or the assistance in the 
performance, of abortions is contrary to their reli-
gious beliefs or moral convictions’’. 
(B) After the University of Vermont Medical 
Center refused to come into compliance with the law, 
the Department of Justice brought an enforcement 
action in Federal court against the medical center 
on December 16, 2020. 
(C) On July 30, 2021, the Department of Jus-
tice under the Biden Administration voluntarily dis-
missed the case, without any binding settlement or 
requirement that the University of Vermont Medical 
Center remedy its unlawful policies or make restitu-
tion to the employees whose rights it violated. 
(8) On May 21, 2019, the Secretary of Health 
and Human Services issued the final rule entitled 
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‘‘Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health 
Care; Delegations of Authority’’ (84 Fed. Reg. 
23170; May 21, 2019) to implement 25 Federal con-
science protection provisions governing programs 
funded under the Department of Health and Human 
Services and provide mechanisms to enforce con-
science laws to ensure that the government and gov-
ernment-funded entities are not unlawfully discrimi-
nating against health care entities. Despite this reg-
ulation providing for enforcement of laws passed by 
Congress, the rule faced numerous legal challenges 
and was vacated. 
(9) On January 11, 2024, the Department of 
Health and Human Services published a final rule 
that fails to equip the Department with the tools 
necessary for effective enforcement of Federal statu-
tory protections of rights of conscience. 
(10) Congress has acted numerous times to ex-
pand access to health care and has also acted nu-
merous times to provide unqualified statutorily pro-
tected rights of conscience to individuals and entities 
in certain circumstances. A health care entity’s deci-
sion not to participate in an abortion, assisted sui-
cide, procedures that can result in sterilization, or 
other interventions erects no barrier to those legally 
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seeking to perform or undergo such interventions 
elsewhere. 
(11) The vast majority of medical professionals 
do not perform abortions. Ninety-three percent of 
obstetricians/gynecologists in private practice report 
that they did not provide abortions (National Li-
brary of Medicine, April 2018) and the great major-
ity of hospitals choose to do so only in rare cases or 
not at all. 
(12) In the landmark 2022 decision, Dobbs v. 
Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme 
Court held that ‘‘the Constitution does not confer a 
right to abortion’’. 
(13) On July 13, 2022, the Department of 
Health and Human Services issued guidance to re-
tail pharmacies in the United States. Such guidance 
purported to address their obligations under Federal 
nondiscrimination laws, but in actuality orders phar-
macies to stock and dispense abortion pills despite 
the fact that pharmacies and pharmacists have a 
right to not violate their conscience by participating 
in abortion under existing law. 
(14) Conscience protections pose no conflict 
with other Federal laws, such as the law requiring 
stabilizing treatment for a ‘‘pregnant woman . . . or 
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her unborn child’’ when either needs emergency care 
(Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor 
Act). As previous Administrations have said, these 
areas of law have operated side by side for many 
years and both should be fully enforced (76 Fed. 
Reg. 9968–77 (2011) at 9973). 
(15) Reaffirming longstanding Federal policy 
on conscience rights and providing a private right of 
action in cases where it is violated allows long-
standing and widely supported Federal laws to work 
as intended. 
SEC. 3. PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST HEALTH 
CARE ENTITIES THAT DO NOT PARTICIPATE 
IN ABORTION. 
Title II of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 
202 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 245 the 
following: 
‘‘SEC. 
245A. 
PROHIBITING 
DISCRIMINATION 
AGAINST 
HEALTH CARE ENTITIES THAT DO NOT PAR-
TICIPATE IN ABORTION. 
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other law, 
the Federal Government, and any individual or entity that 
receives Federal financial assistance, including any State 
or local government, may not penalize, retaliate against, 
or otherwise discriminate against a health care entity on 
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