'Gay Baby' Form Leads To Updated Hospital Guidance From State Of NJ

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — After a Bergen County state senator and others responded with anger over a hospital form asking parents about their baby's sexual orientation, the state of New Jersey has issued updated guidance.

Two weeks ago, state Sen. Holly Schapisi, who represents Bergen County, raised questions when a mom posted on social media that a South Jersey hospital gave her a form asking demographic questions about her new baby — including whether the child was lesbian or gay, straight or heterosexual.

The form arose as a result of a 2022 state law meant to collect demographic information, said Schapisi, who said, "While completely and utterly insane, these facilities are doing so to comply with another nonsensical law ... This law mandates collection of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity data with no age threshold."

State Department of Health spokesperson Dalya Eweis told Patch at the time that the questions were meant to be administered in a "clinically appropriate manner" in compliance with state guidance.

“[Collection] should be done in a clinically appropriate and culturally competent manner, including patient populations for which certain data may not be appropriate, as in the case for newborns," she said.

A spokesperson for Inspira Health, the network of South Jersey hospitals that distributed the form in question, said that in response to the questions, the network would update the protocol to focus on patients over 18.

Clarifying Memo

The state clarified its comments on Tuesday, issuing guidance in a new memo.

The memo stated, "The Department recommends that clinical laboratories and acute care hospitals develop internal policies and procedures to assist their staff with collecting the data from their patients, including procedures for recording the information for patients for whom SOGI information is not clinically appropriate, such as newborns and infants."

"The Department recognizes the concerns and challenges faced by clinical laboratories with collecting SOGI information from certain patient populations," the memo noted. "The law requires that SOGI data be collected in a culturally competent way and that staff be trained in how to collect SOGI data in a culturally competent and clinically appropriate manner."

The hospital said that questions include responses such as "Not Applicable."

They also said that there could be reasons that special populations are unable to answer, such as dementia patients.

"To account for circumstances when the collection of SOGI data is not clinically appropriate or unable to be identified," the memo says, "clinical laboratories and acute care hospitals should develop SOGI data recording procedures using prompts that make clear that a response is not required, such as 'not applicable,' or prompts that make clear that a response is otherwise is 'unknown' or was 'not provided.' "

Department of Health spokeswoman Dalya Ewais did respond when asked for comment about the new guidance.

But a spokesperson for Gov. Phil Murphy's office told NJ.com that the new guidance was meant to clarify the matter, saying, “Since certain facilities were not collecting data in a clinically appropriate manner, our Department of Health is ... providing updated guidance to ensure this type of error does not happen again."

The new state guidance can be found here.

PRIOR REPORTING: Is Your Baby Gay? NJ Lawmaker Criticizes Questionnaire