The Biden administration on Tuesday filed an appeal to find a way to force physicians and hospitals to perform potentially harmful gender transition surgeries on patients – including children – even if they have religious objections.
The Daily Caller reports Biden’s appeal hinges on a 2016 Obama-era interpretation of a nondiscrimination clause of the Affordable Care Act, resulting in a mandate that did not include conscience or religion exemptions. The mandate required doctors and hospitals to provide transgender surgeries upon a mental health professional’s referral.
As CBN News reported in January, a federal court in North Dakota struck down a directive known as the “Transgender Mandate” that was issued under the Obama administration, forcing members of the health care community to violate their medical judgment and religious beliefs.
Becket Law‘s Luke Goodrich outlined exactly who the plaintiffs are in this case and how they would be affected.
“The plaintiffs are religious doctors, hospitals, and clinics who joyfully serve ALL patients regardless of sex or gender identity. They routinely provide top-notch care to transgender patients for everything from cancer to the common cold. They also provide millions of dollars in free and low-cost care to the elderly, poor, and underserved – care that is jeopardized by the government’s attempt to punish them with multi-million dollar penalties,” Goodrich wrote.
The legal scholar denounced Biden’s appeal noting the Transgender Mandate not only threatens religious doctors and hospitals, but it also threatens patients, and there’s substantial evidence showing certain gender transition procedures can be deeply harmful.
Goodrich also explained multiple federal courts have reached the same conclusion: “There is no medical consensus that sex reassignment surgery is a necessary or even effective treatment for gender dysphoria.” Gibson v. Collier, 920 F.3d 212, 223 (5th Cir. 2019).
“The government’s own doctors during the Obama Admin agreed: ‘Based on a thorough review of the clinical evidence…there is not enough evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for patients with gender dysphoria,'” he wrote.
Goodrich also pointed to a study commissioned by NHS England which found “very low” evidence for the effectiveness of “puberty blockers” and cross-sex hormones.
“The Biden Admin shouldn’t have appealed,” he noted. “But we look forward to another ruling that protects patients, aligns with current medical research, and ensures doctors aren’t forced to violate their religious beliefs and professional medical judgment.”
No Psychological Benefits
During an interview with CBN News in January, Dr. Ryan T. Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., explained that patients undergoing sex-reassignment surgery don’t receive the highly-anticipated happiness they are seeking.
“The cultural moment in which we’re living suggests that there’s only one allowed conclusion to this question,” he said. “And the only allowed conclusion is that (gender) transition is the best solution. The biggest data set shows that there’s no benefits, psychological benefits, to patients of hormonal and surgical transition.”
“So what we need to do is find ways to help patients feel comfortable in their own bodies. We need to be respectful. We need to be compassionate,” he added. “We also need to be truthful. And so, we need to be helping patients who feel uncomfortable in their bodies to once again feel comfortable in their bodies. But not to radically transform their bodies, because that does not bring the lasting wholeness and happiness that they seek.”
Catholic Vote President Slams Appeal, Questions Biden’s Catholic Faith
Meanwhile, The Daily Caller reports Brian Burch, president of the Catholic Vote, slammed President Biden on Wednesday for filing the appeal.
Burch noted that even though major media outlets, reporters, and Press Secretary Jen Psaki have advertised Biden’s Catholicism as “devout,” Biden continues to enact policies directly contradictory to Catholic teaching.
“Can anyone name a single thing about Joe Biden’s Catholicism that makes him different in any way from the radical left?” Burch asked the Daily Caller News Foundation. “He’s now in favor of forcing Catholic doctors to violate their own medical judgment and deeply-held religious beliefs.”
“Joe Biden may have grown up as a “devout” Catholic, but it sure seems like he is transitioning into something else,” Burch said.
As CBN News reported in March, Biden’s position on abortion is also creating quite the divide among his fellow Catholic faithful.
His critics say the President is “cloaking himself in Catholicism” by talking about his faith, while not following Church teachings. Many question whether he’s going against long-held tenets of the faith in favor of a more progressive approach.