NEWS RELEASE: Sen. Ashley Moody Joins Sen. James Lankford & Colleagues Urging HHS, CMS to Protect Conscience Rights of Medical Residents

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Senator Ashley Moody joined Senator James Lankford (R-OK) and Congressman Greg Murphy, M.D. (R-NC-03) in sending a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator, urging immediate regulatory action to protect the conscience rights of medical residents in graduate medical education programs.

The members were joined by Senators Steve Daines (R-MT), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Ted Budd (R-NC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jim Banks (R-IN), and Congressmen Michael Cloud (R-TX-27), Julie Fedorchak (R-ND-At Large), John Joyce, M.D. (R-PA-13), Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ-04), Ben Cline (R-VA-06), Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05), Sheri Biggs (R-SC-03), Robert F. Onder, Jr. (R-MO-03), Mary E. Miller (R-IL-15), Barry Loudermilk (R-GA-11), and Claudia Tenney (R-NY-24).

Read the full letter HERE or below:

Dear Secretary Kennedy and Administrator Oz:

On November 25, HHS-CMS published its final rule involving graduate medical education (GME) accreditation which is set to take effect on January 1, 2026. Significantly, the rule had this to say in response to conscience protections for medical residents^[2]:

"Many commenters that supported the proposal also recommended that CMS expand the policy to explicitly prohibit the use of accreditation standards that violate Federal healthcare conscience laws, including the Church Amendments, the Coats-Snowe Amendment, certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act, and the Weldon Amendment. These statutory provisions generally prohibit discrimination against recipients of certain Federal funding who refuse to perform abortions or provide other services in violation of their moral or religious convictions. … Other commenters stated that the existing regulations at §§ 413.75(b) and 412.105(f)(1)(i)(D), which recognize approved programs that would be accredited except for the accrediting agency's reliance upon an accreditation standard that requires an entity to perform an induced abortion, should be expanded to include other services, such as in vitro fertilization, surrogacy, certain forms of family planning, sterilization, sex-rejecting procedures, assisted suicide, euthanasia, medical aid in dying, voluntary stopping of eating and drinking, and inducing death for organ harvesting. In response to comments recommending further expansion of the proposed policy, we may take these comments into consideration for future rulemaking."

We are writing to request that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)issue a rule addressing a significant issue that is leading to the violation of conscience rights of resident physicians in training across the country. Currently, in order for a graduate medical education (GME) program to be fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), they must provide training in induced abortion as standard training to all [obstetrics and gynecology] residents. ACGME is the only accrediting body for GME [obstetrics and gynecology] programs in the US and thus there is no other option for training programs or residents.

This requirement also forces faith-based hospitals who have moral and religious objections to induced abortion to provide this training as well as pay faculty to perform these procedures. While ACGME claims to be in compliance with well-established conscience protections by offering residents the option to "opt out" of this training, this requires first year residents - the most vulnerable in the hierarchy of medical training - to publicly state to their fellow residents as well as their superiors, who will determine the course of their career, that they don't want to do something they are being told is standard training.

This not only sets up an extremely coercive environment where many residents feel they need to "go along to get along" but we have also heard of several instances where residents who opt out are given increased workloads as a result (one example is attached). Medical students are aware of this environment, and as a result many students with either religious or moral opposition to induced abortion are deciding to avoid the specialty of Obstetrics and Gynecology so that they will not have to face this situation.

Prior to 2018 (and since the early 1990s), any OB/GYN resident who desired training in induced abortion was able to receive it by opting in. This allowed those who desired to perform induced abortions in their practice to receive abortion training while not forcing those who did not to participate. At the end of 2018, the ACGME changed their accreditation requirement to now require all OB/GYN residency programs to incorporate induced abortion training as a standard part of the curriculum that would be automatically required of all residents unless they decided to opt out. Also troubling, this shift has made training in induced abortion now considered the standard.

The idea that induced abortion is a standard part of OB/GYN practice is inaccurate, given that 76-93% of practicing OB/GYN physicians do not perform induced abortions. This is not for lack of training. Every obstetrician-gynecologist is trained in the medical and surgical methods used to evacuate the uterus, and it is the same procedure whether it is being performed on a dead unborn baby as a result of a miscarriage, or on a live unborn baby in the case of induced abortion. Prior to 2018, all OB/GYN residents were already required to be trained in miscarriage management (including D&C and D&E procedures), the treatment of ectopic pregnancy, and the treatment of life-threatening conditions in pregnancy (including ending the pregnancy when needed to save a woman's life.

The change to opt-out did not provide any additional essential training to medical residents - the only thing it did was set up an environment which coerces residents to participate in procedures that intentionally end the lives of fetal human beings. By returning training in induced abortion to an opt-in system, OB/GYN residents will still receive all the training they need to fully care for women, and training in induced abortion will still be available for those who wish to receive it.

The Coats-Snowe Amendment, enacted in 1996, generally prohibits discrimination against a health care entity for refusing to engage in certain abortion related training activities. The opt-out requirement is a clear violation of the conscience protections provided by the Coats-Snowe Amendment. Returning training in induced abortion to an opt-in option for medical trainees would still allow for anyone who desired this training to easily access it but would prevent any physician who does not from being coerced into participating. Not only is this what our conscience laws are meant to prevent, but it would also increase the number of medical students willing to go into the specialty of OB/GYN - a critical need at a time when maternity healthcare deserts exist across the country. This would improve access to care for millions of American women.

Because the current opt-out induced abortion training requirement is a clear violation of existing federal law, HHS and CMS should issue a rule to require any graduate medical education program to provide induced abortion as an opt-in only option in order to receive their federal GME funding and in order to receive CMS reimbursements. We urge you to expeditiously act in this matter.

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