Federal Court Backs Religious Freedom

Church Militant ^ | 1/22/21 | Martina Moyski

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Protects Catholic sisters, doctors from covering transgender surgery

BISMARCK, N.D. (ChurchMilitant.com) - On the day before self-identifying Catholic Joe Biden was inaugurated president, a federal court came down on the side of a Catholic religious order seeking to do its work in alignment with its faith.

On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota blocked an Obama-era requirement known as the Transgender Mandate, part of Obamacare, which forced doctors to perform gender transition procedures on patients, including children, even if the doctor believes the treatment or hormone therapy could harm the patient.

The term "gender-transition procedures" in the ruling includes surgery, counseling, provision of pharmaceuticals or other treatments sought to further gender transition.

The court in Religious Sisters of Mercy v. Azar granted protection to the Religious Sisters of Mercy, the Sacred Heart Mercy Health Care Center, SMP Health System and the University of Mary, which argued that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate banning discrimination on the basis of sex does not extend to forcing Catholics to cover sex-change surgery.