The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it is restructuring the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) into three divisions: the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division; the Civil Rights Division; and the Health Information Privacy, Data, and Cybersecurity Division. Secretary Kennedy said the new structure will strengthen OCR’s ability to “enforce conscience protections.”

Notably, the first Trump administration originally created the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division (CRFD) in 2018 to legitimize health care refusals. The Center for Reproductive Rights sued the first Trump administration in 2019 to learn more about CRFD’s budget and staffing, since only a small fraction of OCR complaints historically involved religious and moral refusals. Nonetheless, current OCR Director Paula Stannard continues to elevate so-called conscience rights issues, taking numerous actions that harm reproductive health access.