Educational Resource
Fact Sheet on the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (March 2004)
Fact Sheet: S. 1397/H.R. 3664, The Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA)
Summary: S. 1397/H.R. 3664, the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA), protects the full range of health care organizations and individual health care providers from governmental discrimination for declining involvement in abortion.
Background: The bill amends an existing federal abortion non-discrimination protection. That protection was enacted—by strong bipartisan majorities—in response to a threat that the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) would require abortion training in all teaching hospitals with obstetrics/gynecology residency programs. The law, 42 U.S.C. § 238n, prohibits the federal government, and any state or local government that receives federal financial assistance, from discriminating against health care entities that decline to perform, refer for, train in, or make arrangements for abortions. To make it clear that residents and residency programs are specifically protected, the law states that “‘health care entity’ includes an individual physician, a postgraduate physician training program, and a participant in a program of training in the health professions.”