HHS brings back conscience, religious freedom division

The Conscience and Religious Freedom Division has returned to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights under the Trump administration after being dissolved during the Biden administration.

The division is intended to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights involving religious liberty and conscience protections.

“Our new structure puts patients, families, and communities at the center of everything we do,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a post on X.

HHS oversees the Office for Civil Rights and announced a reorganization into a program-based structure intended to better align the office’s three main focus areas: civil rights, conscience and religious freedom, and health information privacy and security, according to an HHS press release.

The Office for Civil Rights now includes three divisions: the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division, the Civil Rights Division, and the Health Information Privacy, Data, and Cybersecurity Division.

“This reorganization reinstitutes a structure that rightly prioritizes civil rights and conscience and religious freedom alongside health information privacy and security,” HHS Office for Civil Rights Director Paula M. Stannard said in a statement. “All three areas are deserving of subject-matter expertise and distinct senior executive leadership for OCR to best serve the American people.”

HHS first established the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division in January 2018 under President Donald Trump. In 2023, the Biden administration merged the division into a policy division within the Office for Civil Rights.

Roger Severino, vice president at The Heritage Foundation and former director of the Office for Civil Rights, said one of the division’s most significant cases challenged California over a requirement that nuns purchase abortion insurance coverage for fellow nuns, involving roughly $200 million in Medicaid dollars.

“Nuns shouldn’t be forced to pay for abortion services, and yet that’s the kind of thing that happens when government gets too big,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in response to Severino’s post.

The internal reorganization will not reduce the Office for Civil Rights workforce, according to the release.

The office’s Enforcement Division will continue to intake and process complaints, as well as review health security breaches, but the new structure is intended to improve efficiency, the release said.

“The new structure will improve OCR’s effectiveness and efficiency to advance the protection of conscience rights, address race-based discrimination in a color-blind manner, eradicate antisemitism and anti-Christian bias, and restore biological truth,” the release states.