Category: Law

Equality Act’s Attack on Religious Liberty, Medical Conscience

National Review

Reproduced with permission

Wesley J. Smith

President Biden said during the campaign that he supported the Equality Act, which is being sold as a means of guaranteeing equality for LGBT people.

But it does more than that. It would destroy medical conscience by removing existing protections that permit doctors and nurses to refuse participation in abortion, and it would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The Charlotte Lozier Institute’s associate scholar Richard Doerflinger explains in a white paper he authored on the bill. From “The ‘Equality Act’: Threatening Life and Equality:”

The Equality Act’s new freestanding ban on pregnancy discrimination . . . adds the new requirement for women to receive “treatment” for pregnancy that is as “favorable” as treatment for any other “physical condition” . . . . It provides rules of construction indicating that the new requirement should be interpreted as broadly as possible. . . . And it negates the existing religious freedom law that allows believers to seek an exemption from such requirements based on sincere religious beliefs such as respect for human life.

That’s the end of medical conscience, an aspect of freedom of religion that permits doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in the termination of pregnancies.

That’s not all. The bill guts the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a defense against acts deemed discriminatory in the bill. Among other wrongs, this could force Catholic hospitals to permit sterilization, contraception, abortion, and transgender surgeries on premises despite their being prohibited by Catholic moral teaching.

Interestingly the ACLU once understood the importance of protecting Catholic hospitals from such impositions. It now supports the Equality Act:

It is notable that in 1992 the ACLU recognized a religious hospital’s right to decline involvement even in contraception. This is also a service related to pregnancy, so would presumably be required of religious hospitals under the Equality Act – as would removal of a woman’s healthy uterus, surgically sterilizing her, to facilitate her transition to a male gender identity.

As noted above, the Equality Act’s mandates and its elimination of any defense under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act would also reverse the outcome of Supreme Court cases on the Affordable Care Act, subjecting the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious entities to a mandate for contraceptive and early abortifacient  coverage.

Read the whole paper. It is a sobering assessment.

The Equality Act is a blatant act of cultural imperialism and a high-priority agenda item for the new administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress. So much for “unity.”

Court blocks mandate forcing doctors to perform controversial gender transition procedures

Federal court upholds conscience rights for doctors and protects welfare of patients

News Release

Becket Law

WASHINGTON – A federal court in North Dakota just blocked a requirement known as the Transgender Mandate that would force medical professionals and religious hospitals to perform gender transition procedures on their patients—including children—even when the procedures are potentially harmful. In Religious Sisters of Mercy v. Azar, an order of Catholic nuns, a Catholic university, and Catholic healthcare organizations sued the federal government challenging a provision of the Affordable Care Act that would have forced doctors to perform gender transition procedures even if doing so would violate their religious beliefs and medical judgment. Becket represented the plaintiffs, arguing that sensitive medical decisions should be kept between patients and their doctors without government interference, and that no one should be required by law to disregard their conscience or their professional medical judgment.

“Now more than ever, Americans are grateful for the sacrifices of our medical professionals who serve on the front lines and use their training and expertise to serve the vulnerable,” said Luke Goodrich, senior counsel at Becket. “The court’s decision recognizes our medical heroes’ right to practice medicine in line with their conscience and without politically motivated interference from government bureaucrats.”

In 2016, the federal government issued a mandate, applicable to nearly every doctor in the country, interpreting the Affordable Care Act to require them to perform gender transition procedures on any patient, including children, even if the doctor believed the procedure could harm the patient. Doctors who refused to violate their medical judgment would have faced severe consequences, including financial penalties and private lawsuits. Immediately, religious organizations and states sued, challenging the legality of the mandate in multiple courts. In 2016, a federal court in North Dakota put the rule on hold, and in 2019 another federal court in Texas struck it down. In June 2020, HHS passed a new rule aimed at walking back the requirement, but other courts have blocked that new rule. Today’s ruling is the second ruling from a federal court blocking the Transgender Mandate. The ruling protects patients, aligns with current medical research, and ensures doctors aren’t forced to violate their religious beliefs and medical judgment.

“These religious doctors and hospitals provide top-notch medical care to all patients for everything from cancer to the common cold,” said Goodrich. “All they’re asking is that they be allowed to continue serving their patients as they’ve done for decades, without being forced to perform controversial, medically unsupported procedures that are against their religious beliefs and potentially harmful to their patients. The Constitution and federal law require no less.”

Contact: Ryan Colby 202-349-7219 media@becketlaw.org

London newspaper reveals ‘shocking evidence’ about transgender treatments

BioEdge

Michael Cook*

London newspaper reveals 'shocking evidence' about transgender treatments
Mira Pavlakovic,FreeImages

After a legal battle The Mail on Sunday has published what it called “shocking evidence” about transgender medicine which led a High Court judge to ban a government gender clinic from prescribing puberty-blockers.

The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic in London, also known as the Tavistock Centre, began prescribing these for children under 16 in 2011. In December the clinic was forced to stop after the Court ruled that it was “very doubtful” that youngsters could give informed consent of puberty blockers is basically “a live experiment” on vulnerable children.

Swedish psychiatrist Christopher Gillberg testified that the use of puberty blockers is basically “a live experiment” on vulnerable children.”In my years as a physician,” he wrote, “I cannot remember an issue of greater significance for the practice of medicine. We have left established evidence-based clinical practice and are using powerful life-altering medication for a vulnerable group of adolescents and children based upon a belief.” . . . [Full text]

‘A live experiment on children’

Testimony that led a High Court judge to ban NHS’s Tavistock clinic from giving puberty blocking drugs to youngsters as young as 10 who want to change sex

Daily Mail

Sanchez Manning

'A live experiment on children'
Quinn Dombrowski

The shocking evidence that convinced a High Court judge to effectively ban an NHS gender clinic from giving puberty-blocking drugs to children can be revealed for the first time today.

Until now a court order has prevented the testimony of eminent physicians being made public. But lawyers for The Mail on Sunday successfully argued there was a significant public interest in disclosing the material.

Among the devastating statements that can now be divulged is one from Professor Christopher Gillberg, an expert in child and adolescent psychiatry, who believes prescribing drugs to delay puberty – a first step in gender treatment – is a scandal and tantamount to conducting ‘a live experiment’ on vulnerable children.

‘In my years as a physician, I cannot remember an issue of greater significance for the practice of medicine,’ he said. 

‘We have left established evidence-based clinical practice and are using powerful life-altering medication for a vulnerable group of adolescents and children based upon a belief.’ . . . continue reading

Lack of support vs. option to die

The London Free Press

Reproduced with permission

Leonie Herx, Ramona Coelho, Sohail Gandhi

Lack of support vs. option to die

As the COVID-19 pandemic dominates the political agenda and strains the country’s health-care systems, the federal Liberals are intent on passing Bill C-7, which proposes to expand medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to those who are not dying.

Proponents say the bill allows choice and dignity for those with chronic illness and disability. However, the bill fails to provide them with the dignity and humanity that comes with good care and access to supports.

We are doctors who witness the struggles that confront our patients and their loved ones every day. Those living on the margins and with disabilities face significant barriers to care though systemic discrimination (ableism) that can make it harder to live a healthy, fulfilling life in community.

As doctors we should be instilling hope, supporting resilience and using our expertise to find creative solutions to address health and well-being. Instead, we would be required to suggest assisted suicide as an option if this bill becomes law.

Spring Hawes, a woman who has had a spinal cord injury for 15 years, said: “As disabled people, we are conditioned to view ourselves as burdensome. We are taught to apologize for our existence, and to be grateful for the tolerance of those around us. We are often shown that our lives are worth less than non-disabled lives. Our lives and our survival depend on our agreeableness.”

A choice to die isn’t a free choice when life depends on good behaviours and compliance to societal norms. Sadly, the medical community can be complicit in this messaging.

Gabrielle Peters, a brilliant writer who has struggled with poverty since her disability, has shared that a health-care professional sat at her bedside and urged her to consider death. This was just after Peters’ partner announced he was leaving her because she was too much of a burden and she no longer fit into the life he wanted.

Doctors can pressure someone to die as in Peters’ situation but also more subtly can confirm a patient’s fears that her life is not worth living and MAiD would indeed be a good medical choice.

Day after day, we participate in a health-care system and a social support system that does not come close to meeting the basic needs of our most vulnerable patients. However, our role as physicians should always be to first advocate that our patients access all reasonable supports for meaningful life with no suffering.

But alas, Canada does not seem to prioritize health care and supports for all, and soon, that lack of support will be pitted against an option to access death in 90 days.

Patients entrust doctors to make ethical decisions every day regarding their care and to make recommendations that are always aimed at promoting health and healing. The core role of medicine is to be restorative, not destructive. Advocating for our patients’ health and well-being is solemn oath we took.

As physicians we help our patients do many things in the context of a trusting, shared decision-making process. Doctors encourage healthy habits. We refuse to prescribe antibiotics when patients have a viral infection, or opioids on demand. We pull a driver’s licence when we have concerns for patient safety and the public good. We refuse to write mask exemptions without good reason. We serve both patient and the common good.

All of this requires courage to not betray the trust society and the patient have bestowed on our profession. Society’s belief in the inherent virtue and ethics of the profession has been the necessary basis of the physician-patient trust. Would you trust your doctor if you thought they didn’t care about your safety and well-being?

While we recognize patients have the right to ask for MAiD, physicians must not be forced to suggest or forced to facilitate this, especially when reasonable options for living with dignity exist. We must continue to offer our patients what is good and practise medicine with integrity.

As Thomas Fung, physician lead for Siksika Nation, a southern Alberta First Nation, said: “Assisted death should be an option of last resort, and not the path of least resistance for the vulnerable and disadvantaged. Conscience protection is needed in this bill, as no one should be forced to participate in the intentional death of another person against their goodwill.”

One of the most important foundations of our Canadian identity is that we are a caring, compassionate country. We are proud of our universal health-care mandate, and we place a high premium on being inclusive and tolerant while working hard toward the accommodation and integration of marginalized and vulnerable members of our community. And yet, if Bill C-7 is allowed to stand without amendments, we will be in serious danger of losing this fundamental element of our Canadian identity.

Ramona Coelho is a family physician in London. Sohail Gandhi is immediate past-president of the Ontario Medical Association. Leonie Herx is division chair and associate professor of palliative medicine at Queen’s University and past-president of the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians. An earlier version of this article appeared in the London Free Press.