The Biden administration declined to appeal a federal court ruling that blocks the government from forcing religious doctors and faith-based hospitals to perform gender-transition procedures against their conscience and professional medical judgment.
The administration’s decision not to appeal the federal court ruling in Sisters of Mercy v. Becerra to the U.S. Supreme Court by a June 20 deadline means its mandate will be laid to rest.
Big news! The Biden Admin has given up any Supreme Court appeal on the transgender mandate, and our victory is complete. It is UNLAWFUL for the feds to force religious doctors to perform gender transitions against conscience and medical judgment.https://t.co/h8KIy0Tz4J
— Luke Goodrich (@LukeWGoodrich) June 21, 2023
A coalition of Catholic hospitals, a Catholic university, and Catholic nuns who operate healthcare facilities for the elderly and poor filed a lawsuit in November 2016 against the federal government to block the mandate. In January 2021, a federal court in North Dakota agreed that the mandate was unlawful and permanently blocked it from taking effect.
When the Biden administration appealed that decision, the Eighth Circuit upheld the lower court’s decision, concluding in December 2022 that the administration’s plan would violate a federal law protecting religious freedom.
“After multiple defeats in court, the federal government has thrown in the towel on its controversial, medically unsupported transgender mandate,” said Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the Sisters of Mercy and the Catholic hospitals and school.
“Doctors take a solemn oath to ‘do no harm,’ and they can’t keep that oath if the federal government is forcing them to perform harmful, irreversible procedures against their conscience and medical expertise,” Goodrich added. “These religious doctors and hospitals provide vital care to patients in need, including millions of dollars in free and low-cost care to the elderly, poor, and underserved. This is a win for patients, conscience, and common sense.”
Becket also successfully challenged the Biden administration’s transgender mandate in Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra, which also ended with the government’s decision not to appeal to the Supreme Court.
In that case, a religious hospital network sponsored by the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations sued the administration. Becket won a victory for its clients at the Fifth Circuit in August 2022, and the Biden administration also declined to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court.
The religious liberty law firm noted:
The rulings mark a victory for compassionate, evidence-based healthcare and protect religious doctors and hospitals across the country from suffering multimillion-dollar penalties for following their religious beliefs, conscience, and informed medical judgment.
The mandate that religious doctors and hospitals must perform gender transition procedures against their conscience and medical judgment came about in 2016 when the federal government reinterpreted Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) to require faith-based institutions to conduct the often experimental and body-mutilating procedures – even on children.
In an op-ed at the Daily Herald in Chicago last week, Dr. Roy Eappen, a practicing endocrinologist and a senior fellow at Do No Harm, exposed the destruction caused by the transgender industry’s quick adoption of the “gender-affirming care” model that included hormone drugs and surgeries.
Eappen wrote the activist-led industry should have waited for better science:
That science is now rolling in. Hormone blockers, it turns out, can decrease bone density and contribute to infertility. They may also inhibit cognitive development. Ditto cross-sex hormones, which can irreversibly change the body, cause infertility, and even lead to strokes, heart attacks, and diabetes. Then there’s mental health, which appears to deteriorate in many children who get transgender treatments.
“More study is needed before anyone can unequivocally recommend these treatments to teens and preteens,” the endocrinologist asserted.
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
