The ruling from a three-judge panel with the Eighth Circuit noted that the Religious Sisters of Mercy believe “that performing gender-transition procedures would violate their medical judgment by potentially causing harm to patients.” Performing these procedures would violate their religious beliefs about human sexuality and procreation, as would providing insurance coverage to employees for such procedures.
The ruling affirmed a federal district court’s January 2021 decision granting injunctive relief. The appeals court sided with the lower court’s ruling that the intrusion on the Catholic plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion was sufficient to show “irreparable harm.”
“The government’s attempt to force doctors to go against their consciences was bad for patients, bad for doctors, and bad for religious liberty,” Goodrich added. “Today’s victory sets an important precedent that religious health care professionals are free to practice medicine in accordance with their consciences and experienced professional judgment.”
The ruling ends a long legal battle stemming from a similar rule dating back to the Obama administration in 2016. The administration of President Joe Biden issued changes in January 2021.
If finalized, the Biden administration rule would have empowered the HHS to force hospitals and doctors to perform gender-transition surgeries, in addition to expanding the Obama-era version of the rule to include abortion.
The rule revised Section 1557 of the 2010 Affordable Care Act to add “sexual orientation and gender identity” and “reproductive health care services” including “pregnancy termination” to existing “protections against discrimination on the basis of sex.”