To whom it may concern:

In 2014, a “refusal clause” was written into otherwise harmless legislation to license genetic counselors, allowing genetic counselors to refuse service to patients based on the counselors’ “deeply held moral or religious beliefs” and to shield those same counselors from damages. As a result of this legislation, a state-licensed genetic counselor will be able, based on the genetic information provided to the counselor, to deny counseling to any patient simply because the counselor knows or believes that: the patient is lesbian, gay, or transgender; subscribes to a certain religious faith; is unmarried and pregnant; or the person may want to take an action with which the counselor doesn’t personally agree, as some examples.

No genetic counseling client should be subjected to substandard, harmful, misleading, inaccurate, or incomplete care based on a genetic counselor’s deeply held moral or religious beliefs. All genetic counseling clients, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, religion, or viewpoint on abortion, should expect to receive, and should receive, the highest level of care from his or her genetic counselor.

Accordingly, the Board of Medicine should adopt the regulations as drafted by the Advisory Board on Genetic Counseling, and as unanimously approved by the full Board of Medicine on February 18, 2016. 

Sincerely,
James Parrish 
Executive Director
Equality Virginia