On Monday, Gov. Sanders signed a law protecting medical rights of conscience in the state.
Four years ago, Arkansas passed Act 462 of 2021 — the Medical Ethics and Diversity (MED) Act — to uphold healthcare workers’ rights of conscience.
Before that law passed, Arkansas’ conscience protections were narrowly focused on abortion and end of life decisions, and they protected very few people.
Act 462 changed that. It helped broaden those protections and apply them to all healthcare workers.
S.B. 444 by Sen. Kim Hammer (R — Benton) and Rep. Lee Johnson (R — Greenwood) strengthens the healthcare workers’ rights of conscience law Arkansas passed in 2021.
Among other things, this good law adds whistleblower protections for healthcare workers, and it helps protect all medical professionals from having their rights of conscience violated.
With the governor’s signature, S.B. 444 is now Act 970 of 2025.
Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Greg Chafuen issued a statement about the signing of S.B. 444, saying,
“Protecting free speech rights and whistleblower protections for health care professionals is good for doctors, good for patients, and good for medicine. Patients receive the best care when doctors can speak freely and express their opinion about harmful procedures without fear of government punishment. There is a disturbing trend in our country where health care professionals like Dr. Allan Josephson and Dr. Eithan Haim are being fired or raided by armed federal agents just for raising concerns about harmful practices and advocating for medical practices that are based in biology and common sense. We thank Sen. Kim Hammer and the Arkansas legislature for their efforts to bolster protections for medical experts and Gov. Sanders for signing this critical amendment to the state MED Act. We also thank Arkansas Family Council for its unwavering commitment to protecting medical rights of conscience for health care professionals.”
Act 970 will help further enhance the conscience protections Arkansas enacted four years ago. We want to thank Sen. Hammer and Rep. Johnson for sponsoring this good law, and we want to recognize the General Assembly for passing it and Gov. Sanders for signing it. It is important for our state to protect healthcare workers’ rights of conscience. Act 970 is a good law that will do exactly that.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
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