A top U.S. health official on Monday urged medical students and residents to refuse participation in procedures that violate their religious convictions, as a federal commission heard hours of testimony from healthcare workers alleging they were targeted, fired, or prosecuted for their faith-based beliefs.
Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Brian Christine told the hearing on religious freedom in healthcare, held by the Religious Liberty Commission (RLC), that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is working to revoke policies from the previous administration that he said coerced medical professionals into performing abortions or gender-related procedures.
“If your deeply held religious convictions say that you can’t engage in some activity—for instance, abortion or a sex-rejecting procedure—stand strong in that,” Christine said in an interview with The Daily Signal following his testimony at the Museum of the Bible in Washington.
He characterized his faith as his “compass” and promised the administration would ensure believers do not have to “bend the knee to some harsh and ambiguous government.”
The hearing, the sixth held by the RLC since its establishment by President Donald Trump via executive order in May 2025, focused on the intersection of religious freedom, healthcare, and social services.
Chairman Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, stated that the commission’s goal is to identify threats to religious liberty and deliver formal recommendations to the White House later this year.
Abortion Pill Reversal and Pro-Life Practice
Witnesses shared detailed accounts of legal battles involving state mandates that conflicted with their religious ethics. Abby Sinnett, CEO of Bella Health and Wellness in Colorado, testified about her successful challenge to a state law that sought to criminalize doctors for offering abortion pill reversal (APR) using progesterone.
Sinnett told the commission that since filing her lawsuit, which resulted in a permanent injunction against the law in 2025, at least “twenty precious babies are growing, laughing, and thriving today because their mothers got the right care at the right time.” She argued that Colorado’s policy created a paradox: “According to Colorado, you have the right to choose abortion, but you do not have the right to change your mind.”
Dr. Susan Bane, a board-certified OB-GYN, addressed structural pressures in medical training, noting that the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) shifted its curriculum structure from “opt-in” to “opt-out” for abortion training in 2018. Bane argued that this forced residents to participate in abortion procedures unless they provided a formal moral objection, which she said is difficult in the medical field’s strict hierarchy.
“The direct and intentional killing of one of those patients is never health care,” Bane testified. “It never was and it never will be”.
Gender Ideology and Whistleblowers
The hearing also examined the fallout for medical professionals who have opposed gender transition procedures. Dr. Eithan Haim, a general surgeon, described being indicted three times by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice after acting as an anonymous whistleblower to expose that Texas Children’s Hospital was secretly continuing its pediatric transgender program despite public claims to the contrary.
Haim, whose charges were dismissed with prejudice in January 2025, characterized the prosecution as “weaponized.” He argued that the government’s pursuit of him was motivated by an ideological desire for control. “It was the belief in an authority that was beyond their own. That was an eternal insult for them,” Haim said. “They needed me to renounce my faith, bend the knee and legitimize their twisted morality.”
Valerie Kloosterman, a physician assistant with 17 years of service, testified that she was terminated by the University of Michigan Health System after seeking a religious accommodation regarding gender ideology training. Kloosterman alleged that a diversity representative called her “evil” and told her “she could not take the Bible or her religious beliefs to work with her.”
A panel on end-of-life ethics featured testimony regarding the expansion of physician-assisted suicide, often called Medical Aid in Dying (MAID). Dr. Leslee Cochrane, a hospice physician, detailed his challenge to a California law that required even objecting doctors to document and refer patients for assisted suicide.
Ismail Royer, Director of the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team, warned that secular medicine’s emphasis on “personal autonomy” is leading to a “slippery slope” toward full-blown euthanasia, citing recent policy shifts in Canada. Royer argued that replacing the traditional medical dictum to “do no harm” with absolute autonomy is “changing the very practice of medicine.”
Commission members, including Ryan Anderson and Pastor Franklin Graham, expressed alarm at the testimony. Anderson observed that when hospitals violate the religious liberties of their staff, “it causes patients to suffer.” Graham referred to the witnesses as “heroes” for their willingness to face job loss or prosecution.
The commission is expected to hold its final capstone hearing on April 13, 2026, before presenting its report to President Trump in May. Witness recommendations to the body included calls for Congress to establish a “private right of action” to allow healthcare workers to sue for conscience violations without relying solely on federal agency investigations.