Oklahoma GOP advances bill letting Christian doctors deny services to patients

State Rep. Kevin West's bill would let medical professionals refuse certain procedures that violate their conscience

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Oklahoma Republicans are pushing legislation that would allow Christian doctors to refuse helping patients for any reason as long as the rationale is that the help would violate their religious beliefs. It would let those doctors refuse to do blood transfusions, offer STI testing, provide gender-affirming care, give vaccinations, prescribe birth control, propose mental health care, or anything else their faith-based beliefs tell them is forbidden or sinful.

In short, everything that’s wrong with Catholic hospitals would spread throughout a state that already lacks medical professionals.

To be clear, the bill would allow any medical professionals to refuse any procedures that violate their “ethical, moral, or religious beliefs or principles.” But in reality, this is meant to be a gift to religious zealots who think certain kinds of care violate their fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible.

It’s the result of House Bill 1224, sponsored by State Rep. Kevin West, and on Monday, the bill sailed through the Health and Human Services Oversight Committee on a 7-6 vote. (Three Republicans voted against the bill but it wasn’t enough.)

State Rep. Kevin West (Screenshot via YouTube)

As the news outlet Oklahoma Voice points out, a major concern about the bill is that it allows physicians to cite anything as a violation of their faith. Even in the case of emergencies, where the law currently requires doctors to do whatever is necessary (even if they don’t want to), there’s a massive loophole in this legislation:

The legislation, which West said has been successful in a handful of states, could allow a physician, or an entire hospital, to choose not to offer procedures that conflict with personal beliefs. This excludes emergency care, although the bill does not define the parameters that create that situation.

No specific procedures or types of care are outlined in the bill, meaning a health care provider, institution or payor could choose to stop offering STD testing, blood transfusions or elective procedures.

West said this kind of bill was successful in other states, but he didn’t offer any evidence to back that up. (Surprise.)

The vagueness is a big part of the problem here. We already know there are conservative doctors—and entire hospitals—that would rather place women at risk of death than provide safe abortions. This bill would create conditions that allow right-wing doctors to limit their services based on their personal delusions rather than requiring them to do what’s best for the patients.

They wouldn’t get in trouble for it, either. The bill specifies that providers “may not be held liable for damages allegedly arising from the exercise of conscience not to participate in a health care service.” So if patients die because helping them violates a doctor’s religion, that physician won’t suffer any professional consequences for it.

All of this would be especially problematic in Oklahoma, which is largely rural.

“We just had a conversation last week about the lack of maternal or the amount of maternal health care deserts in the state, and we know that most of what we’re talking about here is abortion, gender-affirming care, those types of procedures and services,” [Democratic House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson] said. “And so where will Oklahomans go, even if it’s just a handful of people who need care, if there’s truly no access, if people decide to take this law and say, ‘I’m not going to provide a procedure or service because it goes against my conscience?’ Where will Oklahomans go?”

The answer offered by Republicans is the same one conservative Christians always give whenever they’re defending pharmacists who don’t want to fill an order for birth control: Patients can just get help from someone else.

But that’s not an option when people already struggle to get care in the first place and experienced doctors are few and far between.

Keep in mind that doctors are not clamoring for this bill. West didn’t speak to health care providers before filing this bill, just like the Republicans who push for Bibles in schools never speak to teachers first: Why bother when you know the people most affected by your legislation are the ones who don’t want it? (And there’s nothing Republicans love more than forcing other people to adopt their beliefs.)

The only consolation right now is that this sort of bill has been rejected by Oklahoma Republicans in the past—and even now, in the State Senate:

The Republican also ran this legislation in 2024, and while it passed through the House, it died in the Senate. A similar measure in the Senate died in committee Monday, Munson said.

Indeed, on Monday, the Senate Health & Human Services committee rejected SB 959 on a 7-5 vote, with four Republicans helping shoot it down. You know it’s a bad idea when even Oklahoma Republicans understand how disastrous it would be and how many people would suffer if it were to be implemented.

That doesn’t mean the bill is dead, though since the House version will eventually get a vote. The question lawmakers need to consider is how badly they want their own constituents to suffer because conservatives have a fetish for allowing self-proclaimed Christians to get away with anything they want. A lot of Republicans in the state—but not all, thankfully—seem determined to make sure everyone knows their faith is synonymous with cruelty.

Kevin West, by the way, has a history of extremism. A few years ago, he even agreed with a fellow extremist lawmaker that Black Lives Matter activists are just like members of the KKK.

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