4430 Loc: Little Egypt ** Southern Illinory

In Win for Conscience Rights, Court Says Doctors Don’t Have to Perform
S*x C****es

Nicole Russell / @russell_nm / October 25, 2019 / 0 Comments

A Texas court ruled that an Obama administration rule from 2016 violated
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and overstepped the government’s
authority.

Commentary By
Nicole Russell


Nicole Russell is a contributor to The Daily Signal. Her work has
appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, National Review, Politico,
The Washington Times, The American Spectator, and Parents Magazine.

When the Obama administration issued a rule in 2016 requiring doctors to
perform g****r t***sition surgeries, many doctors balked.

Those same doctors can breathe a sigh of relief now that three federal
courts have ruled against the Obama mandate.

Last week, a federal court in Texas ruled that the 2016 rule issued by
the Department of Health and Human Services violated federal law. That
ruling ratifies two previous court decisions and supports the Trump
administration’s revised regulations on the matter.

The ruling comes just in time, as several faith-based hospitals are
facing lawsuits for refusing to perform hysterectomies, mastectomies,
and other surgeries requested by patients wanting to “t***sition” to
another g****r. Those lawsuits threaten hospitals with financial ruin if
they don’t agree to perform surgeries they believe are fundamentally
wrong and harmful to the patient.

In last week’s court order, issued by the District Court for the
Northern District of Texas, the judge reviewed the history of this
case—Franciscan Alliance v. Azar—which revolved around whether Health
and Human Services exceeded its statutory authority when it tried to
redefine “sex” to include g****r identity.

This was a blatant attempt by the Obama administration to read
t*********r status into a nearly 50-year-old civil rights law.

The judge also considered whether the Obama rule violated the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act, a federal law protecting conscience rights—and
specifically in this case, the rights of doctors and hospitals refusing
to perform a procedure they believe will harm the patient.

Ultimately, the judge decided “the proper remedy at this stage” was to
toss out the 2016 rule altogether because it violates the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act, and because Health and Human Services
overstepped its authority by trying to redefine “sex” to include g****r
identity.

What the Obama Administration Tried to Do

The Obama administration’s 2016 regulation sought to broaden Section
1557 of the Affordable Care Act to specify that any health care provider
that receives federal funds would be required to treat individuals in
accordance with their “g****r identity,” and that they could not deny
such treatment based on that or similar statuses.

Many criticized the rule and predicted it would open up a legal can of
worms. In particular, it would target faith-based health care providers
who would have conscientious objections to performing s*x c****e operations.

Almost immediately, Franciscan Alliance, a large group of
Catholic-affiliated hospitals—there are at least 14 located in Indiana
and Illinois—sued the government. The group, which employs roughly
18,000 people, said the rule violated its employees’ religious liberties.

It was correct.

On New Year’s Eve in 2016, a federal court granted a preliminary
injunction to the Franciscan Alliance.

The court said the rule exceeded Health and Human Services’ statutory
authority when it tried to redefine sex to include g****r identity, and
that it violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by placing a
substantial burden on the free exercise of religion, since doctors would
be forced to violate their consciences and ignore the Hippocratic Oath,
“First do no harm.”

T***s ‘Rights’ vs. Conscience Rights

Still, since the 2016 ruling, multiple faith-based hospitals have been
sued for refusing to perform what t*********r people call “g****r
reassignment surgery,” and what some doctors would call the
sterilization of a healthy human being to assuage g****r dysphoria,
which, scientifically speaking, is a mental illness.

We covered a case like this in September, when a California court
revived a lawsuit against a Catholic hospital by saying it discriminated
by refusing to do a hysterectomy for a woman who wanted to become a man.

This case is particularly revealing because originally, a lower court in
San Francisco ruled in the hospital’s favor, then dismissed the case
because the patient received the hysterectomy from another facility.

However, an appeals court reinstated the case and said the state of
California cared more about fighting discrimination against L**T
patients than protecting the religious freedoms of a faith-based facility.

“Any burden [state law] places on the exercise of religion is justified
by California’s compelling interest in ensuring full and equal access to
medical treatment for all its residents,” wrote Justice Stuart R.
Pollak, for a unanimous three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeal
in San Francisco.

Surely this gives new meaning to the phrase “judicial activism.”

It’s not entirely clear yet how this new ruling will affect the current
lawsuits percolating between health care providers and t*********r people.

What’s clear is that this ruling protects everyone’s free exercise
rights and honors the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because it
finally corrects a bogus Obama-era rule that should never have been
adopted in the first place.

Carol Kelly

It will be decades before we find all the destruction whichObama caused the citizens of this nation. He was a walking time bomb and a jackass on top of that. We simply must be more careful in allowing just anyone to run for political office. The first guarantee must be that he or she is a patriot. Too many are getting rich while undoing the laws and the Constitution of the United States of America.

4430 Loc: Little Egypt ** Southern Illinory

Sadly but you are right but I doubt if there are any patriots to find in the Progressive Liberal Democrats sections

crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island

The Obama Administration did many things like that & worse. It started the drive to force pharmacists to provide morning after pills against their consciences. There were other initiatives.