Trump Administration delays anti-LGBTQ conscience rule because of various lawsuits

A bit of good news is being obscured while everyone is barking about the first Democratic primary debate or noting Trump's latest general insanity.

From The Hill:

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is delaying the implementation of its “conscience protection” rule until November to give the administration more time to deal with a lawsuit over the policy. 

HHS announced in a court filing Saturday that the rule, which was originally scheduled to take effect July 22, would not be implemented until Nov. 22 at the earliest.
A coalition of Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit against the administration in May saying the policy, which would allow health care providers to refuse to provide services on the basis of their religious beliefs, is unconstitutional. 

 . . . Another coalition, which includes Lambda Legal, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Center for Reproductive Rights, filed a suit with Santa Clara County, arguing that the rule will result in “mass confusion among health care providers and is completely infeasible to implement” and could lead to health care facilities scrapping their reproductive and LGBTQ services altogether.

The Advocate had this to say:

Many fear the new rule will not only engender confusion but encourage conservative doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health professionals to deny contraception services, transition-related care for transgender people, and even drugs like PrEP, an HIV prevention regimen. The situation could be incredibly dire for women and LGBTQ people in rural areas, where there are much fewer service providers than in urban areas.

“In the Obama administration, we were focused on expanding access to health care through the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the full and balanced enforcement of anti-discrimination and provider conscience laws,” Jocelyn Samuels, Executive Director of UCLA's Williams Institute, a think tank on LGBTQ issues, said in a statement in May.

“By contrast, this administration is simultaneously trying to restrict universal access to care through attacks on the ACA and expand the authorization for denials of care by religious providers. These actions stand to undermine the health and wellbeing of vulnerable communities, including LGBT people.”