Catholic groups challenge federal mandate on gender transition

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People attend a rally in support of transgender rights in Los Angeles last October.

CNS photo/Mario Anzuoni, Reuters

Several Catholic hospitals, a Catholic university and Mercy sisters who run health clinics have filed a challenge to a federal warrant to perform gender transition proceedings with the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

The groups are continuing a fight they previously won when two lower federal courts struck down what was described as the Affordable Care Act’s ‘transgender mandate’, saying it was a violation of the law on the restoration of religious freedom.

The Biden administration appealed both decisions.

Becket, a Washington-based nonprofit religious freedom law firm that represents some of the Catholic groups, described the case on its website as challenging a policy that threatens Catholic doctors, hospitals and clinics “with multi-million dollar penalties for gender discrimination unless they perform controversial gender transition procedures”.

Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel for Becket, said the two federal courts that took up “this controversial mandate have declared it bad for patients, bad for doctors and bad for religious freedom.”

He also said the federal government “has nothing to do with forcing doctors to perform controversial procedures that could be profoundly harmful to patients” and he hoped the appeals court would make “a common sense decision” that be good for everyone.

In 2016, the federal government began implementing a mandate requiring doctors to perform gender reassignment procedures on any patient, including children, and requiring private insurance companies – except for plans operated by Medicare and Medicaid – and many employers to cover sex reassignment therapy under severe penalties. and legal action.

In August 2016, Becket, joined by eight state governments, filed a lawsuit in Texas on behalf of the Franciscan Alliance, a network of religious hospitals sponsored by the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration and Christian medical and dental associations, defending them from this government mandate.

Becket filed a parallel lawsuit in federal court in November 2016 on behalf of Catholic groups in North Dakota, including the Sisters of Mercy, the University of Mary at Bismarck, and the Sisters of Mary-sponsored SMP Health System. of the Presentation. The state of North Dakota also joined Becket’s legal challenge.

In 2016, the North Dakota federal court suspended the rule, and in 2019, the Texas federal court overturned it. Both courts said the policy was an unlawful override by a federal agency and a likely violation of religious freedom.

In 2020, the Trump administration implemented conscience protections for doctors opposed to the mandate, but the effort was blocked by the courts.

In January of this year, the US District Court for the Eastern Division of the District of North Dakota overturned the transgender warrant. In August, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas granted the plaintiffs a permanent warrant waiver.

In November, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by a California Catholic hospital sued for refusing to perform a hysterectomy on a transgender patient.

The court’s decision, rendered without comment, returned the lawsuit to state court.

When the Catholic hospital was sued in 2016, a lower court sided with it, but an appeals court overturned that decision. The hospital therefore appealed to the Supreme Court in 2020, saying its case “poses a profound threat to the ability of faith-based health facilities to advance their healing ministries in accordance with the teachings of their faith.”

A brief filed by the Catholic Health Association said the appeals court ruling “bodes ill for all religious organizations that serve the public by following the tenets of religious teaching.”

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