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UVM Medical Center Disputes HHS Enforcement Threat

UVM Medical Center main entrance
Pat Bradley/WAMC
UVM Medical Center main entrance (file)

The University of Vermont Medical Center is blasting the U.S. Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights for threatening enforcement action over its abortion Conflict of Care policy.
The medical center says it has responded to correspondence from HHS this month threatening enforcement of a 2019 Notice of Violation over opt-out policies for staff and patients for abortion services.

The UVM Medical Center says it has been in compliance with federal law and remains so.

Democratic Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan says the threat is “a last ditch effort by the Trump Administration to restrict a woman’s access to abortion” and the “attack on UVM Medical Center stands on shaky legal ground at best.”