Court to Decide: Can Obamacare Force Christian Doctors to Perform Transgender Surgery?
By: Michael Foust
The district court got it right. Just like no hospital or physician can be compelled to perform an abortion that goes against their religious beliefs, no hospital or doctor should have to do so on this issue as well. We live in a nation with a right to the free exercise of our religious beliefs and that includes not taking a human life or changing one in a way that violates said beliefs. The same applies to the expression of self through words or art of any kind to act however passively in support of something against ones religious beliefs.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Court to Decide: Can Obamacare Force Christian Doctors to Perform Transgender Surgery?
A federal appeals court on Wednesday heard arguments in a major religious liberty case that could determine whether Christian doctors and religious hospitals can be forced to perform sex-reassignment surgery and treat gender dysphoria under Obamacare.
At issue is a 2016 Obama-era interpretation of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that prohibits doctors and healthcare facilities from discriminating on the basis of gender identity, which is defined as an individual’s “internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.” Under the rule, doctors and healthcare facilities are required to treat gender dysphoria and perform gender-transition procedures in children and adults or be liable for discrimination.
The rule applies to any doctor or healthcare facility that is “receiving federal financial assistance.”
The Obama-era rule – which was issued by the Department of Health and Human Services – did not include religious exceptions.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty sued the government on behalf of the Franciscan Alliance, the Christian Medical and Dental Society, and Specialty Physicians of Illinois. Becket says the rule violates a federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Although a federal judge in 2019 issued a decision favorable to Becket and the coalition, he did not issue an injunction against the Department of Health and Human Services preventing it from enforcing the rule – or one like it – in the future. Thus, Becket appealed to the Fifth Circuit.
Becket calls the rule the “ Transgender Mandate .” The Trump administration opposed the rule and sided with Becket. An attorney representing the Biden administration on Wednesday opposed Becket in court.
“Medical decisions related to gender transition have serious implications, and it is clearly in patients’ best interests to ensure that doctors are able to serve in keeping with their consciences and their medical judgment,” said Luke Goodrich, a senior counsel at Becket. “Government bureaucrats in Washington who want to force doctors to perform controversial, experimental procedures are putting children in harm’s way.
“The harmful Transgender Mandate undermines the federal government’s own medical experts’ advice on treating children with gender dysphoria,” Goodrich added. “Yet, politicians and activists are trying to force private doctors, on pain of severe punishment, to perform controversial procedures that can be deeply harmful to patients.”
The transgender mandate, Becket says, “threatens to drive religious doctors” from the profession.
“Notably, the court [Wednesday] asked the government's attorney point blank: Does the new administration have plans to go after these religious doctors and hospitals? And the government wouldn’t answer,” Goodrich tweeted . “This underscores why plaintiffs need full protection.”
A website set up by opponents of the Obama-era rule says that most children “referred for gender dysphoria” grow up not to be transgender. The Obama administration’s “own panel of medical experts concluded that these gender transition procedures can be harmful,” the website says.
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The main problem with this idiotic question is that doctors who perform these procedures are specialists who have already chosen this field of medicine.
Yet another nothing burger.
This seems like a case without an actual controversy. I'm surprised it got past the Standing phase.
Gender surgery is an 8-year specialty, so if a person is a bigoted conservative Christian and still invests 8 years in that specialty then they should suffer the consequences of their stupidity. Those Drs first need to master general surgery and then plastic surgery and then they start to study under one of the approx 20 surgeons who are doing gender surgery in the US. You seem to think that people who are transgender can waltz into any hospital and demand a doctor perform gender confirmation surgery.
The AMA has been very clear about its stance on non-discrimination toward LGBT patients. If you want to be a bigot and seek to hide your religious bigotry behind the 12st amendment then you should stay out of medicine where your bigotry will not be tolerated.
Maybe you could start to obey the 4 gospels, or would that be an example of religious persecution if you were forced to live by the teachings of the man who you claim to be the son of god and your personal savior? I suggest that you start with Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31, and Matthew 19:12.
Why didn't you go light your hair on fire about something a bit less absurd, after you familiarize yourself with the WPATH transgendered standards of care.
Still hypothetical.
He is another paid liar who cannot manage to lie in a believable manner. children arent having surgery because that procedure doesn't happen until they are 17-18. Transgendered care is a specialty, so doctors who haven't had this training arent treating transgendered children. You should have t read the pages in the WPATH link concerning transgendered care for teens and preteens, but you didn't.
Children do not outgrow being transgendered. People are born trans and it doesn't go away and the care isn't controversial among the medical community. You would know this if you ever bothered to read the current medical research instead of right-wing religious propaganda.
You need to find a better source for your religious-based lies. If you clutch your pearls any harder the oyster is going to come la back to life and slap you for it.
You haven't won anything because there is nothing to be contested. These religious bigots would not have the necessary specialist training for transgendered care. You seem to have been convinced that transgendered people can force any doctor that they find to care for them, but that is as absurd as forcing any Dr to do brain surgery or a heart transplant.
Your religious beliefs do not supersede the rights of others in medicine. If you are a religious bigot then stay out of the medical field and go work for your church.
Does this come up a lot? If I wanted any kind of sexual reassignment surgery, I would want it done by a doctor with experience in that surgery, in a facility that routinely hosts that procedure. Why would anyone even seek that procedure anywhere else? You certainly can't force a doctor to do a procedure for which he has no training or expertise.
And even Doctors who do reassignment "for a living" have strict requirements for lots of psych evals prior to any surgery
Search on Papillon Center, New Hope, PA
It is a long, expensive process.
Bullshit. It's a strawman, what if, scenario.
It has no standing and should never have gotten this far.
No. What happens is that a person in transition is beat up, or in a car accident and admitted to a hospital which refuses to give them
the hormones they already have prescriptions for. That is the over all intention of the original legislation. Not that Curly Bob Silverback
walks into any Presbyterian hospital and demands hair removal from 90% of his/her body by Christian Evangelicals.
The whole case is based on "What if" and has no injured parties.
Hospitals owned by religious orders cannot be compelled to do abortions
I never thought this was much of an issue as far as doctors go since it is a specialty. The Big question is will Nurses and other operating room staff be forced to take part if they work for a facility that decides to perform these operations. I don't think it's an issue for nurses and staff who attend to people recovering from surgeries since the deed is done and it's just general care at that point.
I don't see that as any contention either as most of these places that perform the surgery, the nurses know exactly what is going on.
Again, bullshit. If it wasn't for frivolous lawsuits, we wouldn't have half the court cases we have today.
You actually think that all lawsuits that are heard are not frivolous?
Hilarious.
My questions is, why does this asshole rep and some other people care if someone has the surgery.
It is none of their business at all.