A federal judge has ordered a suspension – at least for the short-term – of Joe Biden’s agenda that would require employers and health care providers to pay for – and for surgeons to perform – “sex-change” surgeries that end up mutilating the healthy body parts of children.
The announcement comes from the Alliance Defending Freedom which is representing the Christian Employers Alliance in a lawsuit it brought in federal court in North Dakota.
“All employers and healthcare providers, including those in the Christian Employers Alliance, have the constitutional right to conduct their business and render treatment in a manner consistent with their deeply held religious beliefs,” said Jacob Reed of the ADF.
“The employers we represent believe that God purposefully created humans as either male or female, and so it would violate their religious beliefs to pay for or perform life-altering medical procedures or surgeries that seek to change one’s biological sex. The court was on firm ground to halt enforcement of these unlawful mandates that disrespect people of faith.”
Biden’s agenda is that he wants to force both non-profit and for-profit religious employers and health care providers to pay for and perform “surgeries, procedures, counseling, and treatments that seek to alter one’s biological sex even if such actions violate the employers’ or providers’ religious beliefs.”
Those treatments, which the Biden administration has insisted are “medically necessary” and “life-affirming,” include feeding chemicals to children to halt the ordinary progression of puberty, and surgeries that mutilate body parts.
The court ruling said the CEA is likely to prevail in its lawsuit, which contends the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is misinterpreting and improperly enforcing discrimination based on sex in Title VII to force religious employers to pay for and provide health insurance coverage for such surgeries and procedures.
The fight also charges that U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ is incorrectly and improperly redefining “sex” as it is used in federal law to include “gender identity.”
“No government agency ought to be in the business of evaluating the sincerity of another’s religious beliefs,” the ruling said. “HHS Guidance encourages a parent to file a complaint if a medical provider refuses to gender transition their child, of any age, including an infant. The thought that a newborn child could be surgically altered to change gender is the result of the Biden HHS Notification and HHS Guidance that brands a medical professional’s refusal to do so as discrimination. Indeed, the HHS Guidance specifically invites the public to file complaints for acting in a manner the Alliance says is consistent with their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The ruling added, “Beyond the religious implications, the Biden HHS Notification and resulting HHS Guidance frustrate the proper care of gender dysphoria, where even among adults who experience the condition, a diagnosis occurs following the considered involvement of medical professionals… By branding the consideration as ‘discrimination,’ the HHS prohibits the medical profession from evaluating what is best for the patient in what is certainly a complex mental health question.”
Shannon Royce, the chief of the CEA, said in a statement released by the ADF, “The administration’s mandates are crippling for the countless Christian-owned and operated businesses seeking to care well for their employees without the fear of punishing fines, burdensome litigation costs, the loss of federal funds, and even criminal penalties.
“As stewards of the health and safety of our valued employees, it is unconscionable and unconstitutional to be mandated to provide, pay for, or promote services and procedures that directly contradict our deeply held religious beliefs. We are pleased that we can continue to act consistent with those beliefs while our lawsuit proceeds and look forward to ultimately prevailing with our case.”
WND reported only last month when Biden’s HHS appointee, Xavier Becerra, confirmed in a congressional committee hearing that he advocates for mutilating the bodies of children who are presented to surgeons as transgender, therefore needing surgeries to “change” them from male to female or female to male.
He was confronted during the hearing by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., about recommendations and requirements in rules issued by his department.
Those include various surgeries to remove the body parts that don’t align with the child’s “gender identity.”
She asked him about those surgeries.
He tried to avoid the question, stating, “I don’t equate gender affirming care with mutilation.”
But he admitted those surgeries are part of the services to which Americans are “entitled.” Further, he said tax dollars need to fund such procedures.
The science on the issue confirms that the vast majority of children with a gender dysphoria grow out of that confusion as they grow toward adulthood. Further, studies confirm that many of those who do a “trans” procedure end up, at some point, trying to commit suicide.
Katie Pavlich in a column at Townhall, pointed out Biden just announced a new, taxpayer financed and whole-of-government campaign to promote transgenderism.
Christian leaders including James Dobson and Franklin Graham immediately condemned it as no more or less than “vile.”
Biden’s announcement said, “The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health has developed a resource to inform parents and guardians, educators, and other persons supporting children and adolescents with information on what is gender-affirming care and why it is important to transgender, nonbinary, and other gender expansive young people’s well-being.
“In 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) approved the first ever application from a state to add additional gender-affirming care benefits to a state’s essential health benefit benchmark plan.”
Boebert asked Becerra, “In this gender affirming care, Mr. Secretary, have there been tax dollars put forward to fund mastectomies, metonymies and hysterectomies for sex reassignment purposes for minors with gender dysphoria?”
“Americans are entitled to receive healthcare services. They are entitled to receive any of the case you just mentioned,” Becerra said.
Becerra recently was enraged that Texas officials declared subjecting children to those chemicals and surgical procedures involved in what science confirms is impossible, changing gender as that is embedded in the body down to the chromosome level, was child abuse.
The governor there ordered child abuse investigations opened when parents were subjecting a child to those procedures.
Becerra said at the time if parents in Texas or anywhere found themselves being investigated for trying to impose on their child such body-mutilating surgeries they should contact the HHS federal office of civil rights.
But a federal court also has determined that those investigations in Texas are allowed to continue.