Biden Admin Waives Supreme Court Review in Key Transgender Fight
This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).
Source: Real Clear Policy
For the last six years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has pushed a controversial transgender mandate, which threatens religious doctors and hospitals with multimillion dollar penalties unless they perform gender transitions in violation of their conscience and medical judgment. When those doctors fought backwinning a major victory in federal appeals court in Augustthe fight appeared poised to head to the Supreme Court. But on Friday, the Biden administration gave up on seeking Supreme Court reviewmeaning the hard-fought victory for religious liberty now stands as a powerful precedent nationwide.
The case, called Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra, was brought by a Catholic hospital system and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, a nationwide organization of thousands of Christian healthcare professionals. The plaintiffsmotivated by their religious missioncompassionately treat every patient that walks through their doors, for everything from cancer to the common cold. But like many other healthcare professionals and experts, they view medical interventions designed to change a persons gender to be harmfulcontrary both to the best medical data about how to treat individuals struggling with gender dysphoria and to their religious understanding of sexuality and the human person. They therefore decline to perform such procedures, or to cover them in their insurance plans.
In 2016, however, the federal government attempted to make them. That year, in the waning days of the Obama Administration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule interpreting the Affordable Care Acts ban on sex discrimination in healthcare to mean that healthcare professionals must perform and insure gender transitions, or else face crippling penalties. Over the intervening years and administrations, the mandate has been tweaked around the edges. But the basic requirementperform gender transitions or else get out of medicinehas remained the same, with the Biden Administration most recently declaring it dangerous and likely unlawful to [a]ttempt[] to restrict gender-transition procedures, even for minors.
Fortunately, religious-freedom law protects the ability of religious doctors and hospitals to take a different path. In 2021, a federal court in Texas struck down the transgender mandate as unlawful and permanently blocked the federal government from forcing the plaintiffs to perform or insure gender transitions. The Biden Administrationjoined by the ACLUappealed, but a unanimous Fifth Circuit affirmedbecoming the first federal appellate court to block the transgender mandate. And on Friday, the Biden Administration let its deadline for appealing to the Supreme Court expiremeaning healthcare professionals nationwide can now get back to their ministries without fear that the mandate will be applied to them.
Read more: https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2022/12/02/biden_admin_waves_supreme_court_review_in_key_transgender_fight_868028.html
This article is from a conservative perspective in that they are supportive of the underlying holding but my real comment/question is why is the administration not fighting this to the end? Are they afraid of a more sweeping decision? Is this going to be a pattern where we don't even take things to the USSC because we are afraid of what will happen there?
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)I can't say I 'know all the facts' offhand but it's usually a safe bet that reich-wing 'media' outfits are totally full of shit in how they're representing ... whatever they're representing.
They cater to stupid people, folks who know jack diddly shit ... about anything.
Just sayin'
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)administration has chosen not to appeal to the USSC. The rest of the article you can dismiss but again, my question is WHY is the administration not appealing to the USSC?
The source article is not important unless you are claiming that the appeals court did not strike down the rule and/or the administration is going to fight it to the USSC.
This automatic kneejerk response to any article from a right of center (or even center) perspective is not really helpful in the long run.
keopeli
(3,461 posts)RCP, part of RCPolitics, was center-right many years ago. Since 2016, it has taken a very hard right turn. They regularly publish lies, falsehoods, misleading articles, and ideology as reality. While the point you are trying to make may be based on factual information, using a rotten source can prove very problematic, potentially undermining or derailing the legitimate question you raise based on the info provided.
Given that your primary reference is to the Biden Admin's decision to forego a SCOTUS appeal by missing a filing deadline, there are doubtless numerous sources that would not compromise your intent. Just my opinion, and hardly worth 2 cents.
Blessings!
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)ruled against the proposed rule and that the Biden administration decided not to appeal to the USSC) are correct? So what is the problem with this article exactly? You just don't like the source?
keopeli
(3,461 posts)the legitimacy and accuracy of what are, as you say, provable facts, because I have known RCP to manipulate facts in an attempt to promote falsehoods. My whole point is that choosing a source is an important part of presenting a question or hypothesis for this very reason. I assume you are very aware of the egregious behavior that has emanated from RCP in recent years and either it doesn't bother you or you simply couldn't locate a second source. However, because it is possible that you are unaware of the callous disregard for facts and truth that this publisher exhibits regularly, I chose to write to you and make sure you ARE aware. If you choose to back up your promoted discussion with RCP as your source fully aware of what RCP is and does, then you are doing it fully aware of the high likelihood that many DUers (like myself) would likely react to the source issue rather than to address the legitimate question you raised.
In other words, I'm just trying to be helpful, certainly not disrespectful. I hope you understand that.
Thanks for bringing the missed deadline to my (our) attention. That's an essential bit of news that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.
Blessings again!
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)will link to source documents. This is actually UNNECCESSARY as the facts as presented were not in dispute in the article but you were somehow butthurt by the link.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca5/21-11174/21-11174-2022-08-26.html
As for the Biden administration failing to appeal the case I do not know exactly how you want me to prove a negative but as far as I can see they have failed to appeal,
NullTuples
(6,017 posts)However, I agree that the issue needs to be discussed. And since this was a negative event, ie a missed deadline, I took 5 minutes and as of tonight, only 10 news outlets covered it. All are Catholic &/or far right wing.
So perhaps it would've been better to just explain what had happened rather than promote the vile talking points of the source.
I don't know why the Biden H&HS would drop the fight at this point. My only guess that doesn't terrify me is that this is not the case nor the Court they want to fight it with. They'd do much better to go with the recent case where the court ruled against a red state in abortion since it violated the religious liberty of non-conservative Christians. Abortion & trans health care go hand in hand in this regard. Both are a matter of bodily autonomy being forcibly taken away by businesses claiming religious liberty. And with a court consisting of religious zealots, that argument is likely the winning one. Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra / Burwell did not take that route and kept losing against Republican judges who only applied that hospitals and doctors have the right to harm people if it's based on religious liberty.
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)appeal?
If you think the OP link was in violation of DU rules feel free to alert.
If not just debate the question on the merits. This could have been a much more substantive discussion if you were not so butthurt by the source.
EndlessWire
(6,377 posts)from the perspective that they are being allowed to force an opinion on the patient.
"The plaintiffsmotivated by their religious missioncompassionately treat every patient that walks through their doors, for everything from cancer to the common cold. But like many other healthcare professionals and experts, they view medical interventions designed to change a persons gender to be harmfulcontrary both to the best medical data about how to treat individuals struggling with gender dysphoria and to their religious understanding of sexuality and the human person."
This is junk medicine. Some patients commit suicide unless they are being treated. Not everyone is going to shape up and comply with the viewpoint of this religious hospital system. It is not particularly useful for them to condition their viewpoint as acceptable just because they ""The plaintiffsmotivated by their religious missioncompassionately treat every patient that walks through their doors, for everything from cancer to the common cold." This is just another form of discrimination.
Not sure why the word change is in quotes. Do they not think that surgery and hormones change things? It sure does. Let people live as they want.
I don't know why Biden let the deadline expire. He knows more than I do. But, this is just one more loss of gay rights. It is not acceptable that hospitals which receive any government aid or services should get to deny services over their own biases. It's okay to put patients through counseling first, but that's not what was said here.
h2ebits
(632 posts)This is the exact reason that we need public hospitals and a public healthcare "insurance" program rather than private ones because they can pull this crap on anybody.
I imagine that Biden let the deadline slide because he didn't want THIS Supreme Court to have a chance at causing more damage as another DU member indicated.
The Catholic church has been doing this kind of selective decision making for many many years. For example: Women (or in my case, a husband who informed me later so it wasn't even my decision) who arrive at a Catholic hospital in labor need to sign off on a document that the child's life is more important and if it comes to a choice; they will save the child's life over the mother's life. That was then; this is now--I doubt that anything has changed.
We desperately need universal healthcare in the US. The current private, for-profit system doesn't work and will never work.
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)with their personal religious beliefs based on this rulling.
NullTuples
(6,017 posts)In the whole United States, Catholic owned hospitals alone comprise of 1 in 6 hospital beds. That doesn't include some massive non-Catholic religious affiliated hospital chains or alliances.
All 29 pertinent health care provider organizations are pro-trans health care: here are their statements.
https://transhealthproject.org/resources/medical-organization-statements/
What religious hospitals are doing is not health care, it is medical malpractice based on personal opinions.
The only hope at this point are the abortion cases that pit pro-abortion religions against conservative Christian states and hospitals (trans health care & abortion arguments are nearly the same for both sides).
moniss
(3,949 posts)will only reinforce the ignorance and will be extrapolated widely to almost every other professional activity or service. But we know if this were turned around used to deny these clowns any service for themselves they would be screaming from the highest heights and running to court in a flash. So basically where we are at in 'Murica is that if you are operating from a religious viewpoint you can discriminate against others with your actions/provision of services but someone of a different conviction than yours cannot discriminate avail themselves of the same principle and withhold services from you.
JT45242
(2,173 posts)They would rewrite the constitutional precedent so that these groups would claim their religious freedom was violated while operating a for profit hospital.
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)cannot 'codify' anything. Only Congress can.
Igel
(35,197 posts)it's binding in the circuit in which it was decided.
It goes to SCOTUS, it's binding everywhere.
Moreover, if it's decided by SCOTUS now then it's precedent at the national level. We've been all over "stare de-f**king-cisis" recently, but only recently (hard to overlook things like Obergefell, when the expletive raised to Spec-NP or Raise alpha or whatever the current buzzword is, and became "f**k stare decisis", but most manage).
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)so the rule is blocked nationwide since the administration did not appeal. While you are correct in that the legal precedent is only binding on that circuit, the injunction is nationwide. Further the precedent, while not binding on other circuits is persuasive.
NullTuples
(6,017 posts)Yet neutral judges stay in their lane and only apply their rulings to their region, because that's how the system is supposed to work.
It's another case of federal official behaviors being constrained only by tradition, something Republicans routinely ignore when it suits them.
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)to appeal/fight them.
Martin68
(22,671 posts)would rule against the administration, thanks to a majority of conservative judges. They may have made the realistic decision that their resources could better be used elsewhere in a losing proposition.
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)is certainly a tension at least in how far that extends. Is it a private personal right or do you have that right in a fundamentally non-religious environment like in interstate commerce? That is the fundamental question and this court has been expanding those areas in which one is allowed to 'exercise' their religion even if otherwise discriminatory.
NullTuples
(6,017 posts)Allowing healthcare to be withheld based on the opinions of those who own the hospital rather than accepted medical practices ( see: https://transhealthproject.org/resources/medical-organization-statements/ ) is immoral and unethical. It may also be malpractice.
But also: what about the religious beliefs of the patients?
This is why public accommodations non-discrimination laws need to be applied uniformly.
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)of the free exercise clause of the US Constitution. The issue is which constitutional provision will be paramount.
NullTuples
(6,017 posts)kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)medical procedure. They cannot force some medical professional to perform a procedure against that professionals will. Which is appropriate in that we don't force most people to do anything against their will. I once had a cat that was pregnant (I did not know) that I wanted fixed and the vet would not do it as it violated her religious beliefs. I had to wait 2 days till another vet was available.
cstanleytech
(26,080 posts)as I doubt they would be willing to issue many rulings that would go against a organization that is founded around certain core religious tenets.
Martin68
(22,671 posts)knowledge. The consensus among scientific and medical professionals is that gender dysphoria is real and has a powerful impact on mental health. By which I mean that they agree that a person's mental health can only be maintained by helping them achieve a condition closer to their own experience of what gender they are, regardless of their genetics and genitalia. The courts have always been a bit behind the latest medical and scientific understanding.
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)professionals may agree on a certain issue but does that negate an individuals free exercise of religion? That is the issue. You may think it does but the USSC in recent times at least seems to not agree. There are competing constitutional protections at issue here.
NullTuples
(6,017 posts)Should hospitals be allowed by law to discriminate against people because of their race?
Especially when said business may be the only trauma center in a region?
kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)a conflict between an individual medical practitioners deeply held religious beliefs and what science says is appropriate medical care. The isse right now that the USSC is redefining is which of these competing interests are paramount.
Omaha Steve
(99,071 posts)Real Clear Policy is not an acceptable source for LBN.
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