Last week, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule that would have required doctors to perform abortions and gender reassignment surgeries. In a unanimous opinion, the Fifth Circuit Court upheld a 2021 permanent injunction by a lower court that shielded Christian groups from anti-discrimination lawsuits under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, race and national origin.

 The Department of Health and Human Services had been working on implementing the Biden administration’s “Notice and Guidance on Gender Affirming Care” agenda. This would have forced doctors to perform abortion and body mutilating “gender transition” surgeries, even if they were morally opposed to the practices.

 HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra claimed “This proposed rule ensures that people nationwide can access health care, free from discrimination. Standing with communities in need is critical, particularly given increased attacks on women, trans youth, and health care providers. Health care should be a right not dependent on looks, location, love, language, or the type of care someone needs.”

 In 2016 the Obama administration tried to require healthcare providers to perform gender transition procedures, including on minors, even if the providers held sincere religious objections. The Obama-era mandate was challenged in court by multiple groups, and was eventually repealed during the Trump administration, only to be revived by the Biden administration.

 In August 2021, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas issued a permanent injunction against a similar mandate that required medical facilities and health insurers to cover or to provide abortions and gender transition procedures. O’Connor issued the permanent injunction in the case of Franciscan Alliance, Inc. et al. v. Xavier Becerra, concluding that the mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. “No party disputes that the Transgender Mandate threatens to burden Christian Plaintiffs’ religious exercise … by placing substantial pressure on Christian Plaintiffs, in the form of fines and civil liability, to perform and provide insurance coverage for gender-transition procedures and abortions,” he wrote.

 Luke Goodrich of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty was critical of the proposed rule, telling The Christian Post that it was “yet another proposal to force doctors and hospitals across the country to perform gender transitions and abortions in violation of their conscience and medical judgment. This has been the announced policy of the administration since the first day President Biden took office.”

 Goodrich commented that if they had lost, the Biden administration would have declared “open season” on religious hospitals that objected to gender transitions.

 Joseph Davis, also of the Becket Fund, called this ruling “a major victory for conscience rights and compassionate medical care in America. Doctors cannot do their jobs and comply with the Hippocratic Oath if the government requires them to perform harmful, irreversible procedures against their conscience and medical expertise.”

 Biblical Connection: One of the many sins that the Canaanites committed that caused God to bring judgment on them was sacrificing their children for their benefit and pleasure (Leviticus 18:21, Deuteronomy 12:29-31).

 PRAISE: This is a major victory reinforcing the rights of Christian medical groups and providers to not to be forced into performing surgeries going against their sincerely held religious beliefs.