A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of religious doctors and blocked the Biden administration’s requirement that would force healthcare and insurance groups to perform transgender procedures even if it violated their religious beliefs.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday sided with the Religious Sisters of Mercy and another religious group in its latest unanimous ruling that they are entitled to a permanent injunction against the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate. A similar ruling was delivered by the 5th Circuit Court against the Biden administration policy in August.
The judges in the appeals court determined that the HHS and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s interpretation of Obamacare’s Section 1557 and Title VII should apply to transgender procedures that conflicted with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office represented religious groups, catholic nuns, and hospitals that sued the department and Biden administration for its interpretation of the EEOC.
“All the plaintiffs in these cases joyfully serve transgender patients for everything from cancer to the common cold,” Luke Goodrich, senior counsel and vice president at Becket, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s just that certain gender transition procedures they believe based on strong medical evidence can actually be deeply harmful to their patients.”
"The federal government has no business forcing doctors to violate their consciences or perform controversial procedures that could permanently harm their patients." –@LukeWGoodrich
More on today's Eighth Circuit ruling against the #transgendermandate. https://t.co/LrucPFQnsY
— BECKET (@BECKETlaw) December 9, 2022
President George W. Bush’s appointee, Judge Lavenski R. Smith wrote the opinion along with Judge Raymond W. Gruender, another Bush appointee, and Judge Jonathan A. Kobes a Trump appointee.
Goodrich noted that the rulings provide legal precedent for future lawsuits brought by religious doctors, only the named plaintiffs, in this case, receive protection from these rulings.
“They can cite these as precedent and get similar protections for themselves,” Goodrich said.
In this legal battle, the Biden administration objected that the plaintiffs couldn’t prove that Section 1557 would be enforced against them because they hadn’t had the opportunity to try yet. However, the 8th Circuit Court’s ruling on Friday declares that the Biden admin’s explanation accounted for a “concession that they may do so.”
The Biden administration has 60 days to ask for a rehearing in the 8th Circuit and 90 days to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
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