A federal court in Texas has ruled in favor of conscience protections in a fascinating case concerning the intersection of healthcare, sex reassignment surgeries, and religious liberty.
On Tuesday, the court ruled in Franciscan Alliance v. Azar that certain 2016 Health and Human Services regulations violated religious freedom. The regulations, issued under the Obama administration, mandated that employers perform sex reassignment surgeries, contradicting their religious beliefs.
Conservatives will recall that in 2016, then-President Barack Obama announced regulations that said that “discrimination based on ‘sex’ in federally funded health programs would be interpreted to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression, and transgender status.” This regulation prohibited doctors from denying treatment to transgender people for any reason, even religious ones.
A group of 14 hospitals that employs nearly 18,000 people in Indiana and Illinois, Franciscan Alliance, immediately challenged the law. They claimed that this mandate would violate their employees’ religious beliefs and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In December 2016, a federal court in Texas issued an injunction while HHS continued to wrangle with the legal implications of its policy.
In May 2019, HHS, under the Trump administration, issued new proposed regulations changing the regulation’s interpretation substantially, and providing cushion for physicians who objected on religious grounds. The court’s ruling this week affirms both that previous 2016 decision and President Trump’s revision of the rule.
In a statement, Becket Vice President and Senior Counsel Luke Goodrich said:
Rulings like this are an encouraging indicator that religious freedom can and should remain protected in this country. They also offer a powerful reminder that the Obama administration issued a number of regulations that expanded the concept of discrimination so far they allowed transgender people, who often believe they’re marginalized, to demand entitled treatment, even if it forced a person to violate their conscience.
Transgender activists have already launched a number of lawsuits circulating in lower courts suing faith-based hospitals for refusing surgeries that would help them transition. It’s not immediately clear what will happen in some of those cases, but this ruling should shed more light on what faith-based hospitals and medical professionals can and can’t be forced to do.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
