The Biden administration just lost in the 8th Circuit Appeals Court over their attempt to try and force Catholic healthcare providers to perform so-called ‘gender surgeries’.
The 8th Circuit’s ruling upheld a lower ruling which indicated that using the Obamacare HHS rule on discrimination in this manner would violate the religious freedoms of these Catholic healthcare providers.
Here’s more from Reuters:
The Biden administration cannot force a group of Catholic healthcare providers and professionals to perform gender transition surgeries under an Obama-era regulation barring sex discrimination in healthcare, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a North Dakota federal judge who said the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) rule infringes on the religious freedoms of the plaintiffs, including a group of nuns who run health clinics for the poor and an association of Catholic healthcare professionals.
The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit came to the same conclusion in August in a case brought by Christian medical groups.
The federal Affordable Care Act prohibits sex discrimination by healthcare providers who receive federal funding, and the HHS rule interpreted that ban as extending to discrimination based on gender identity.
The Trump administration attempted to repeal the rule in 2020, but that effort was blocked by federal courts. That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court in Bostock v. Clayton County held that discrimination based on gender identity is a form of discrimination on the basis of sex.
The plaintiffs in Friday’s case had sued in 2016 to strike down the rule, but the case was stayed for most of the Trump administration. They amended their complaint in 2020 after the Trump-era rule was blocked.
U.S. District Judge Peter Welte in Fargo, North Dakota, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs last year.
Welte said applying the rule to providers with religious objections to performing gender transition surgeries would violate the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). That law prohibits the government from burdening an individual’s exercise of religion.
The 8th Circuit on Friday agreed. The court said the intrusion on the plaintiffs’ rights under the RFRA was enough to establish the irreparable harm necessary to block HHS from enforcing the rule against the plaintiffs.
The panel included Circuit Judges Lavenski Smith, Raymond Gruender and Jonathan Kobes, all of whom were appointed by Republican presidents.
It’s a shame that it takes a major court ruling to stop Democrats from trying to force Christian medical institutions into perform these horrific surgeries that they clearly disagree with, and should!
Thankfully we had good judges that all sided with these Catholic healthcare providers, because this could have easily gone the other way with activist judges and it would have taken the Supreme Court to stop this madness.
In case you are wondering, two of these judges were appointed by Bush 43 and one by Trump. The US District judge was also appointed by Trump.