Christian Doctor Denied Job for Refusing Abortion Referrals – We’re Fighting Back

When a physician is welcomed back to a hospital, credentialed, given a start date – and then has the rug pulled out from under him because he won’t sign a contract requiring him to violate his faith – that is not an oversight. It’s a federal civil rights violation. That is what happened to Dr. Dominic Polverino, and it’s why we have filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Dr. Polverino is a board-certified family medicine physician in New York with eight years of prior service at Rochester Regional Health (RRH). He is also a devout Christian who believes – consistent with the formal teaching of his church – that prescribing contraceptives, abortion-inducing medications, or referring patients for any of those services constitutes material cooperation with moral evil. They are the sincere religious convictions that animate his entire vocation as a healer.

When Dr. Polverino sought to return to RRH as a part-time primary care physician in late 2024, he was welcomed back with open arms. He was re-credentialed. He met his new team. His start date was scheduled. Then the contract arrived – and everything changed.

Buried in the employment agreement was a provision requiring that, wherever the physician’s religious beliefs prevented him from providing certain services – “e.g., contraceptive or reproductive services” – he would make “reasonable accommodations” by ensuring appropriate referrals were made to other providers. A second, revised contract kept the same language virtually word for word.

Dr. Polverino did exactly what the law permits: He raised a clear religious objection and asked that the mandatory referral language be removed or modified. RRH’s legal department refused. Their only concession was a verbal assurance that patients requesting such services were “unlikely” – while leaving the written obligation to refer fully intact in the required document. It was a clear trap.

When Dr. Polverino declined to sign the unlawful contract, his start date was canceled. Here’s what you need to know: Federal conscience statutes exist precisely to protect doctors like Dr. Polverino.

Take action with the ACLJ. Sign the petition: Stop Forcing Physicians To Violate Their Pro-Life Convictions.

The Church Amendments (42 U.S.C. § 300a-7) forbid any entity receiving HHS funds from discriminating against physicians who refuse to perform or assist with abortions on religious or moral grounds. Conditioning employment on signing a referral mandate is exactly that discrimination.

Also bolstering his complaint is the Weldon Amendment, which prohibits HHS fund recipients from subjecting individual health care providers to discrimination because they do not refer for abortions. The law could not be clearer – and RRH violated it.

And the Coats-Snowe Amendment (42 U.S.C. § 238n) adds yet another layer of protection, expressly forbidding discrimination against any physician who refuses to provide referrals for induced abortions.

RRH receives substantial federal funding through Medicare and Medicaid. The law attaches conditions to that funding. One of those conditions is that the hospital cannot force physicians to choose between their faith and their livelihood. RRH violated those conditions.

Dr. Polverino’s case is not an isolated incident. This is a pattern, and the ACLJ has fought it before. We fought for a Vermont nurse who was deceived into an operating room and forced to participate in an elective abortion – even though her name was on the hospital’s own conscience-objector list. In response, we filed a complaint with HHS, which found the hospital in violation of the Church Amendments, and the Trump DOJ filed the first-ever federal lawsuit to enforce healthcare conscience protections. Then the Biden Administration – pressured by the hospital’s lawyers – dropped the lawsuit entirely, leaving our client without remedy.

That betrayal is now part of the official record. The Trump DOJ’s Task Force on Anti-Christian Bias confirmed it all: The Biden Administration “rapidly worked to change course” and “generally chose the interpretation least protective of religious objectors.”We haven’t forgotten – and neither has the new DOJ.

RRH should take note.

On behalf of Dr. Polverino, we have filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights. We are calling on HHS to investigate RRH, issue a finding of violation, require the removal of unlawful referral mandates from all physician employment agreements, and place conditions on RRH’s continued receipt of federal funds until it comes into full compliance with federal conscience law.

Religious liberty in the field of medicine is not a fringe issue. Every day, physicians of faith are quietly pressured, coerced, and pushed out of their professions for refusing to abandon their convictions. We will not stand by and let that happen – take action with us and sign our petition.