President Joe Biden’s administration filed an appeal on Tuesday that seeks to force doctors and hospitals to perform transgender surgeries, regardless of religious or moral objections.
Former President Barack Obama’s administration issued an order in 2016 requiring doctors to provide transgender treatments upon a mental health professional’s referral.
The mandate, an interpretation of the Affordable Care Act’s nondiscrimination clause, did not include conscience or religious exemptions.
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An association of over 19,000 medical professionals, several religious organizations and nine states challenged the mandate in two different courts, according to a website run by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
A Texas district court struck down the mandate in 2019, ruling that the government “cannot force religious doctors and hospitals to perform gender transition procedures in violation of their conscience and professional medical judgment.”
The order was blocked again this year by a federal court in North Dakota.
The Biden administration appealed the more recent ruling.
The appeal pits health secretary Xavier Becerra against the Sisters of Mercy and the Catholic Benefits Association, marking the second time Becerra has been involved in legal action against nuns.
“This is bad for patients, doctors, and religious liberty,” Becket senior counsel Luke Goodrich said of the appeal on Tuesday.
#BREAKING: The Biden Admin just filed an appeal seeking to force religious doctors and hospitals to perform potentially harmful gender-transition procedures against their conscience and professional medical judgment. This is bad for patients, doctors, and religious liberty. 1/
Neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Becerra have all stood against the Little Sisters of the Poor in their battle with the Supreme Court over an Obama-era mandate forcing employers to pay for contraceptives for their employees.
In 2017, Becerra filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump’s administration arguing that religious organizations like the Little Sisters of the Poor should not receive exemptions from the order because of their beliefs.
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The lawsuit is currently under consideration by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
As the attorney general of California, Harris filed a 2014 amicus brief pushing the Supreme Court to strike down a lower court’s ruling that Hobby Lobby should not be required to provide contraception to its employees.
“A woman’s access to essential services, including contraception, should not be restricted because of the religious views of her employer — particularly when the right to these services is protected under federal law,” Harris said in a statement at the time.
When the Supreme Court upheld conscience exemptions from Obama’s birth control mandate in July 2020, Harris called the ruling “shameful.”
A shameful decision by the Supreme Court that will deny up to 126,000 employees birth control coverage. https://t.co/q3Hcarm8UQ
Biden also condemned the ruling, calling it “disappointing,” and promised to renew legal action against the Little Sisters of the Poor should he win the presidential election.
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