Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

14. Department of Health and Human Services · Minor

Ensure medical and doula training is not used for abortion training

Not started

485 14. Department of Health and Human Services

“Ensure that training for medical professionals (doctors, nurses, etc.) and doulas is not being used for abortion training. HHS should ensure that training programs for medical professionals—including doctors, nurses, and doulas—are in full compliance with restrictions on abortion funding and conscience-protection laws.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    No HHS action ensures that federally funded training for doctors, nurses or doulas complies with abortion funding restrictions and conscience protection laws. OCR's enumerated record of conscience actions on `hhs.gov/conscience`, which runs back to 2008, has seven in-window entries and not one of them reviews a training program: a Notice of Violation to Illinois under the Weldon and Coats-Snowe Amendments (2026-01-21), a nationwide Dear Colleague Letter and three rescission or repudiation notices the same day, and two Dear Colleague Letters about the Vaccines for Children Program (2025-08-21 and 2025-09-04). The Dear Colleague Letter of 2026-01-21 is the nearest thing and is moved nearby rather than toward the ask: it restates the Coats-Snowe Amendment's training provisions in full - a health care entity may not be discriminated against because it "refuses to undergo, require, provide, or refer for abortion training" or attended a program that does not provide it - but it is an explanation of what the statutes protect, addressed to everyone, not a review of any program for compliance, and "doula" does not appear in it. HHS-OIG has done none of this work either: its report search over 7,988 publications returns nothing for 'doula' or 'abortion training', and its Work Plan of current and planned projects returns nothing for 'doula' or 'abortion' (against 136 results for 'Medicare', so the filter works). Federal Register full text since 2025-01-20 returns 2 documents for 'abortion training', both Medicare payment rules quoting the graduate medical education conscience provision that has been in the statute since 1996, and 1 for 'doula', a Department of Defense TRICARE demonstration. The in-window action nearest the ask is structural rather than substantive: OCR's reorganization, approved 2026-05-14 and effective 2026-06-28, restores a subject-matter Conscience and Religious Freedom Division whose remit expressly includes the Church Amendments, the Coats-Snowe Amendment and the Weldon Amendment. It creates the office; it does not review a training program. HHS also has a graduate medical education accreditation rulemaking scheduled (RIN 0991-AC41), which is #1353's object.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The reorganization notice was read in full at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-06-30/html/2026-13142.htm; the words “doula” and “born” do not appear in it, “training” appears twice and neither instance is about medical training programs.
  • Read 2026-09-06. hhs.gov can be read. hhs.gov/conscience was read in full, including the “Past Actions” list and the 2026-01-21 Dear Colleague Letter behind it. No notice of violation has been issued to a training program; the only in-window Notice of Violation went to the State of Illinois over its referral-requirement statute.
  • OIG’s report search works on its all-reports page and its work-plan project browser. It was tested against a nonsense control term; the negatives here are measurements, not empty pages.
  • One search covered the conscience-statute questions this ask shares with #1308.
Action
restrict
Object
federally funded medical and doula training programs
ID
1351