A lawsuit filed in federal court in Texas by a group of religious hospitals and a number of states is asking the court to prevent the Obama administration from forcing them to perform gender transition surgeries on adults and children, even against their own medical judgement.
“It’s a very rare moment in history when the government would force doctors to go against their conscience and their medical judgment and perform procedures that may be deeply harmful to patients,” said Luke Goodrich, a lawyer at the Becket Fund, which is representing Franciscan Alliance, a religious hospital network, and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, two of the parties involved the lawsuit.
Also challenging the HHS mandate is Specialty Physicians of Illinois, along with the states of Texas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kentucky, and Kansas, which are all led by Republican governors.
Notably, the Obama administration does not require coverage of gender reassignment procedures under Medicare or Medicaid for children or adults because a government review of the clinical evidence available for gender reassignment surgery was inconclusive on whether it was helpful or harmful to patients with gender dysphoria.
“Based on a thorough review of the clinical evidence available at this time, there is not enough evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with gender dysphoria,” a report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stated.
Instead, decisions for transition-related surgeries under Medicaid are made individually on a case-by-case basis.
“So you have doctors reaching one conclusion, and then you have politically zealous bureaucrats in the Office of Civil Rights—a different branch of HHS—saying science be damned, every private health care provider in the country has to cover this stuff in their health insurance and the doctors have to perform it,” Goodrich told The Daily Signal. “It’s deeply hypocritical.”
Please remember, these are the so-called pro-science people. So I guess all these doctors are anti-science?
This stuff is lunacy. These politicians are mandating a distortion of reality and forcing everyone to affirm it.
I recall the Mel Brooks character in Blazing Saddles being concerned that he didn’t a “harrumph” out of one guy.
But don’t worry. It’s in the courts now. And judges always know what’s best.
