A federal judge ruled against the Obama administration on Saturday, putting the president’s transgender health mandate on hold and handing the White House yet another legal smackdown.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor granted plaintiffs a temporary injunction against an Obamacare rule that requires doctors and hospitals to treat patients the same, regardless of gender identity. In his 46-page decision, O’Connor said the rule would “likely violate” the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. He also surmised that the Obama administration had no legal basis to treat gender identity as an issue deserving state protection.
“The government’s usage of the term sex in the years since Title IX’s enactment bolsters the conclusion that its common meaning in 1972 and 2010 referred to the binary, biological differences between males and females,” the judge wrote. “Prior to the passage of the ACA in 2010 and for more than thirty years after the passage of Title IX in 1972, no federal court or agency had concluded sex should be defined to include gender identity.”
According to lawyers from the Becket Fund, the legal organization representing the plaintiffs, the ruling means that the federal government will not be able to force doctors to betray their religious beliefs or their own medical judgment.
“The government has no business forcing private doctors to perform procedures on children that the government itself recognizes can be harmful and exempts its own doctors from performing,” said Becket Fund lawyer Lori Windham. “Today’s ruling ensures that doctors’ best medical judgement will not be replaced with political agendas and bureaucratic interference.”
The original rule, put into place by the administration’s Health and Human Services agency, did not explicitly require doctors to perform gender transition surgery; it merely mandated that doctors provide their usual services to transgender patients. However, as we’ve seen with this administration, there is no rule or law they cannot bend for the sake of their leftist agenda.
In a statement, the White House denounced the ruling.
“Today’s decision is a setback, but hopefully a temporary one, since all Americans – regardless of their sex, gender identity or sexual orientation – should have access to quality, affordable health care free from discrimination,” said White House spokesperson Katie Hill.
What Americans deserve is the knowledge that their health care is being governed by sound medical science, not liberal politicians who are at the mercy of their leftist donors.
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