Category: Law

HHS Denies Conscience Freedom for Physicians

National Review

Matt Bowman

We’ve all read about how President Biden recently ordered his Health and Human Services Department to issue a national eviction-moratorium mandate, even though “the bulk of the constitutional scholarship says that it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster.” And indeed, the Supreme Court has just struck it down.

What can you do when the president brazenly admits that he is trampling on constitutionally protected freedoms?

But the eviction moratorium is not the only mandate from this president that far exceeds his authority. It’s not even the only illegal mandate from President Biden’s HHS.

On August 26, two organizations of medical doctors and an obstetrician/gynecologist filed a lawsuit in federal court over a mandate from President Biden and HHS that will force doctors to perform gender-transition procedures, even on children.

The administration’s excuse for this mandate is Obamacare, but that 1,000-page statute . . . simply prohibits sex discrimination, as Congress understood that term when it enacted civil-rights laws half a century ago.

Yet on January 20, President Biden ordered his federal agencies to go far beyond the law and reinterpret sex discrimination to include “gender identity” discrimination. . . . continue reading

Bill Undermines Conscientious Objection to VAD

CQ Today

Duncan Evans

Conscientious objection to voluntary assisted dying (VAD) may not be an option for Queenslanders if the state government’s bill to legalise VAD is passed in its present form, a leading healthcare provider has warned.

In a media statement released last week, Mater Board Chair Francis Sullivan AO said the proposed legislation would force Mater to allow assisted dying to take place at its facilities in direct contradiction to the moral ethos upon which the healthcare provider delivers patient care to Queenslanders.

“The proposed law will also compel Mater and other not-for-profit providers to allow doctors who are not known to our hospitals to enter our facilities to administer lethal doses to our patients,” Mr Sullivan said. . . . continue reading

The University of Manitoba’s repulsive pantomime of justice against a conservative student

The National Post

Colby Cosh

Today’s column has to start with a tip of the cap to my colleague Tyler Dawson, who has delivered a fine account of an extraordinary Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench case that was decided last week. It concerns a struggle between medical student Rafael Zaki and the University of Manitoba’s Max Rady College of Medicine, which expelled Zaki in the summer of 2020 after about a year’s worth of disciplinary procedures.

Zaki’s offence was a total of three Facebook posts that attracted anonymous complaints from 18 fellow students: two were written in support of the right to bear arms, and the third was an extended, uncompromising anti-abortion monologue that seems to have touched on just about every pro-life argument ever devised, irrespective of consistency or convincingness. . . continue reading

Manitoba medical student expelled over ‘pro-gun and pro-life’ Facebook posts wins court ruling

Rafael Zaki said he was expelled for his conscientious and religious beliefs. The judge said the university appeared biased in its decision

The National Post

Tyler Dawson

A Manitoba medical student who was expelled after failing to satisfactorily apologize for his controversial views on guns and abortion has been granted a new adjudication of his expulsion.

Rafael Zaki, a Coptic Orthodox student at the University of Manitoba who was supposed to graduate in 2022, posted three items on his Facebook page in February 2019. He was expelled in August 2019

One year later, after losing two appeals within the university system, Zaki asked Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench to review the decision made by the University Discipline Committee. Zaki said he was expelled “for holding conscientious and religious beliefs that abortion is harmful.” . . . continue reading

Ruling blocking HHS ‘transgender mandate’ called ‘victory for conscience’

Catholic Review

CNA Staff

WASHINGTON (CNS) — A U.S. District Court judge’s Aug. 9 ruling to block the Biden administration’s mandate that doctors and hospitals perform gender-transition procedures despite their own moral or medical objections is “a victory for common sense, conscience and sound medicine.”

That is the view of Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, based in Washington. He is the lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the case.

“Today’s ruling protects patients, aligns with current medical research, and ensures doctors aren’t forced to violate their religious beliefs and medical judgment,” he said about the ruling in Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra. . . continue reading