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An effort by the Biden administration to require doctors and hospitals to perform abortions and gender-transition procedures has been blocked by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. This has been called “a major victory for conscience rights and compassionate medical care in America.”

Over the past year and a half, the Biden administration has taken a series of actions to affirm and promote abortion access as well as the LGBTQ agenda.

On 25 July, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced its plan to introduce a rule that soon became known as the “transgender mandate”. Quoting critics of the rule, Baptist Press explained:

“The proposal would not only force doctors, clinics and hospitals to perform procedures to which they object but require health insurance companies to cover ones they find objectionable…”

Just last week, a federal Court of Appeals in New Orleans blocked the controversial regulation, upholding an earlier permanent injunction against enforcement of the rule by a federal court in Texas.

This recent decision is not the only setback at the judicial level for the Biden administration, however. In July, a federal judge decided that Department of Education (DOE) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines could not be enforced.

These guidelines would have mandated that schools permit students to compete in sports teams — and use change facilities and bathrooms — on the basis of their gender identity instead of their biological sex. The rules were being challenged by twenty states.

Response to the Rulings: “A Victory for the Rights of Doctors”

Brent Leatherwood, the acting president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (the powerful public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention), responded:

“Baptists have long recognized ‘God alone is Lord of the conscience’ [quoting the Baptist Faith & Message]. This ruling adheres to that truth and protects doctors and health-care providers from violating their consciences by conducting gender-transition surgeries or abortions.”

He called the original rule “an abuse of state authority” and said that the result was “a victory for the rights of doctors” that “recognizes that the conscience is not some trivial item that can be paved over.”

Likewise, Joseph Davis — counsel for religious freedom advocacy group the Becket Fund — called the outcome “a major victory for conscience rights and compassionate medical care in America”.

The Becket Fund’s clients in the ruling, the Franciscan Alliance and the Christian Medical and Dental Society, run a Catholic hospital network and represent nearly 19,000 healthcare professionals, respectively, according to Baptist Press.

In a written release responding to the decision, Davis said the following:

“Doctors cannot do their jobs and comply with the Hippocratic Oath if the government requires them to perform harmful, irreversible procedures against their conscience and medical expertise.”

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Photo by Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons.