Gender Surgeries By Christian Docs Nixed

All presidents try to push limits on their power, but Biden’s quest via HHS to use Obamacare small print to force Catholic groups to provide transgender care was permanently barred by a second federal appellate court.

The 8th Circuit’s 3-judge panel’s ruling last week was simple enough: The Biden Administration can’t require religious doctors & hospitals to give transgender medical services if it violates their conscience under the Constitution’s Freedom of Religion clause or a federal law prohibiting undue burdens on an individual’s exercise of religion. As in the past, Reuters noted, Biden’s DOJ keeps claiming a doc’s refusal to, e.g., provide a sex change, on religious grounds is a patently illegal discrimination against transgender patients. Besides the Affordable Care Act’s language on the subject, an HHS regulation provides for severe financial penalties for those so discriminating after receiving federal funding. But, the 8th Circuit panel this time followed the 5th Circuit’s earlier ruling in August holding that the cited & arguably vague laws & rules notwithstanding, the federal government can’t force “Christian medical organizations to perform abortions or gender transition surgeries” whether getting fed $ or not.

DOJ, HHS & Mr. Biden, vow to appeal to the full circuit & even to the US Supreme Court, which in 2020 held in Bostock v. Clayton County that discrimination based on gender identity is a form of discrimination on the basis of sex. However, the Supremes have yet to apply that rule to providers with religious objections & where performing, e.g,. gender transition surgeries, might violate the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act that prohibits the gov’t from burdening an individual’s exercise of religion … as well as Constitution’s Freedom of Religion clause itself.

Davd Soul