CMA and ACPeds Challenge the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
December 18, 2023
CMA members, including Executive Director Mario Dickerson (first in front) and Health Care Policy Chair Dr. Tim Millea (third in back), with members of ACPeds and ADF Senior Counsel Chris Schandevel (second in front) after the Dec. 6, 2023 oral arguments in the American College of Pediatricians, et al v. Becerra at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Members of the Catholic Medical Association (CMA) and the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) attended the Dec. 6 hearing at U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati, where Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys presented oral arguments in the case of American College of Pediatricians, et al v. Becerra.
ADF attorneys appealed to the 6th Circuit after a lower court dismissed the suit by the two medical associations that together represent 3,000 physicians and health care professionals. Now the medical associations await the 6th Circuit Court’s opinion to pursue next steps.
In the lawsuit, the physicians are challenging a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requiring doctors to perform controversial and life-altering procedures and surgeries for individuals seeking to alter their bodies to match their gender identity, including children, even if doing so violates the physician’s medical judgment, religious beliefs, or conscientious objections.
“CMA and ACPeds will continue efforts to protect Americans from harmful and misguided medical interventions, particularly when they are utilized in children and adolescents,” said CMA Health Care Policy Chair Dr. Tim Millea. “As more information becomes available, the harms these individuals suffer from ‘gender affirming care’ are clear. With the assistance of ADF, our partner with this and many other issues, we remain confident that the truth will be recognized and those who suffer with gender-based concerns will be able to receive compassionate and evidence-based care that will benefit them.”
Background
On Jan. 20, 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order that sought to reinterpret the word “sex” in federal laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
This new interpretation also affects the Affordable Care Act. Section 1557 of that law bans sex discrimination, but the administration has expanded that to create a scenario in which doctors and other health care professionals could be forced to act against their medical judgment, religious beliefs, and conscience by performing controversial and often medically dangerous abortions or “gender transition” interventions on patients—including children.
This interpretation means the government is essentially telling those in the medical profession that they need to ignore the scientific fact that there are two sexes—male and female. But the biological reality is that women’s and men’s bodies are not the same. They react differently to medications. They are at greater risks for different types of cancer. And, of course, only women are capable of being pregnant. Ignoring these facts creates inaccurate, dangerous, and potentially lethal health care situations for patients of all ages.
These unconstitutional mandates don’t just threaten doctors. They threaten their patients as well—children, in particular. The reality is that gender transition procedures are dangerous, and in the vast majority of cases, children come to accept their gender without having to use experimental interventions to “transition.” But the Biden administration’s reinterpretation of the law keeps doctors from diagnosing and treating these children in a manner consistent with their expertise and conscience.
“Doctors should never be forced to perform a controversial and medically dangerous procedure that goes against their best judgment, their conscience, or their religion, especially when it involves vulnerable children,” said ADF Senior Counsel Chris Schandevel, who argued before the court on behalf of the medical associations. “President Biden’s Health and Human Services department is grossly overreaching its authority and, in so doing, putting children’s psychological and physical health in danger. Our clients are rightfully objecting on medical, ethical, religious, and conscientious grounds to this unlawful government mandate.”
