Legislation Allows Ohio Medical Providers to Turn Away LGBTQ Patients

Samantha Wright

Under the state’s new two-year budget bill, medical providers in Ohio are now permitted to refuse treatment for LGBTQ patients. The refusal can be based on their moral, ethical, or religious beliefs.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed the Ohio state budget bill into law in late June. According to the Human Rights Campaign the bill is seen as a threat to the basic health care rights of more than 300,000 LGBTQ Ohioans. DeWine does not see it that way when he spoke to the reporters the day he signed the bill. DeWine said the bill will not change the standard of health care in Ohio.

“In the real world, most of those rights are not only recognized and exercised by medical professionals but they’re being accepted by other medical professionals,” DeWine said, according to cleveland.com. “That is the way the world generally works. This is basically put in statute and codified.”

DeWine exercised his right to “line-item” veto several portions of the budget bill but made the decision to keep it in the bill, according to cleveland.com. 

Ohio State Rep. Casey Weinstein, a Democrat from District 37 in Columbus, said “I am completely against medical providers being able to refuse care for LGBTQ patients,” 

“Medical providers take a Hippocratic oath to do no harm to their patients. Discrimination – and denying care because of it – is harmful. It goes against the very core of the profession. And it must never be allowed to happen,” he said.

Kent State’s own LGBTQ student D’Lainee Smiley spoke on the topic of the new bill.

“Why wouldn’t you want your people to be taken care of and safe in the state that you run? This only creates more problems,” she said.

D’Lainee said the bill is discriminatory against the LGBTQ community.

“If you’re part of the LGBTQ+ that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to get help medically. They’re going to let someone suffer just because of who they are or what they believe in?” she said.

Ken Ditlevson, director of Kent State’s LGBTQ+ Center, said “I felt as if it’s a legal loophole that allows discrimination and that it’s something I’m not proud of as an Ohio resident.”

“Going to a medical provider is already a scary experience,” Ditlevson said, “but LGBTQ+ patients often face discrimination by medical providers.”

“It’s a step in the wrong direction, it makes it an even more intimidating experience for LGBTQ patients to go to the doctor,” he said. “It gives a horrible message of what Ohio stands for”

LGBTQ+ patients can be turned away by medical providers https://t.co/GjMdT186M6

— Sam Wright (@Sammerzjo) October 1, 2021