Healthcare professionals at the Department of Veterans Affairs can now discriminate against Democrats, and it’s all thanks to Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order.
While medical staff are still required to treat patients regardless of race, color, religion, or sex, new rules at the VA have explicitly removed protections based on political party affiliation, martial status, and national origin, The Guardian reported Monday.
Similarly, health care professionals can now be banned from working at the VA over their political affiliation, marital status, and union membership, according to documents obtained by The Guardian.
The new rule changes apply to professionals across disciplines, including doctors, certified nurse practitioners, psychologists, dentists, chiropractors, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers, and speech therapists.
Dr. Arthur Caplan, founding head of the division of medical ethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, told The Guardian that the VA’s new rules were “extremely disturbing and unethical.”
“It seems on its face an effort to exert political control over the VA medical staff,” Caplan said. “What we typically tell people in healthcare is: ‘You keep your politics at home and take care of your patients.’”
“Those views aren’t relevant to caring for patients. So why would we put anyone at risk of losing care that way?” Caplan added.
VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz told The Guardian that the changes were just a “formality” made in order to comply with Trump’s executive order “defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”
Trump’s executive order attempting to redefine the government’s definitions of gender and sexuality has already upended essential medical care for transgender patients across the country, and opened the door for a sweeping crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights throughout the federal government.
The Trump administration has also taken part in a disturbing trend of targeting Democrats with violence and chaos. On Sunday, the president threatened to expand his inhumane immigration enforcement efforts to areas where voters support Democratic candidates. On Saturday, two democratic lawmakers in Minnesota and their families were targeted by an assassin.
These new rules are also spurred by a Republican leadership that has embraced the nuclear American family in its desperation to cling to some invented past, sought to punish divorced people, and undermine programs that help single parents.
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