The Do No Harm Act will help protect everyone’s religious freedom while ensuring that no one can misuse it to harm others.
Religious freedom is a shield that protects us all, not a sword to harm other people. But now, many are misusing a federal law that was designed to protect religious freedom–the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)–to claim a right to deny access to health care, jobs, and government-funded services, and to discriminate against LGBTQ people, women, religious minorities, and the nonreligious.
The Do No Harm Act will restore RFRA to its original intent. Under the bill, RFRA will continue to protect religious exercise, like the right to wear religious attire. But it will ensure RFRA cannot be misused in ways that harm other people.
Our country is strongest when we are all free to practice the religion of our choice or no religion at all—without hurting others.
The Do No Harm Act would bar RFRA from being used to undermine discrimination laws, deny access to healthcare, evade child labor laws, thwart laws to protect workers’ rights, and refuse to provide services under a government grant or contract.
More than 100 civil rights, LGBTQ, health, women’s, labor and faith organizations have endorsed the Do No Harm Act.
More than 30 religious organizations representing people from diverse faith traditions–including Muslims, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Wiccans, Orthodox Jews, Reform Jews, and Hindus–support the passage of the bill.
“We urge Congress to quickly pass this critical bill to ensure that religious freedom remains a shield that protects all of us, not a sword used to harm others."
After Kamala Harris became Vice President, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) became the main sponsor of the Do No Harm in the Senate.
The Do No Harm Act (H.R. 1378) was introduced again in the House of Representatives by U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), who was joined by several new lead sponsors: Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.).
AU President and CEO Rachel Laser testified before the House Education and Labor Committee on the misuse of RFRA, urging members of Congress to support the Do No Harm Act. She was joined by Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
For the first time, the Do No Harm Act was introduced in the House of Representatives by U.S. Reps. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.).The bill was reintroduced again in the House in 2017 and 2019; and in the Senate by then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Cal.) in 2018 and 2019.
Act now: Tell your members of Congress to support the Do No Harm Act
Abortion bans violate the separation of church and state. Americans United and the National Women’s Law Center—the leading experts in religious freedom and gender justice—have joined forces with thirteen clergy from six faith traditions to challenge Missouri’s abortion bans as unconstitutionally imposing one narrow religious doctrine on everyone.
