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Joe Biden delivers remarks prior to signing an executive order in July 2022 designed to promote abortion access.Alex Wong / Getty Images

Help therapist being attacked by Southern Poverty Law Center: LifeFunder

NEW ORLEANS (LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic medical group cannot be forced to commit abortions or provide transgender drugs and surgeries, a federal court ruled Friday.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rebuked attempts by President Joe Biden’s administration and the ACLU to forced Franciscan Alliance to kill preborn babies and chemically and genitally mutilate individuals in the name of so-called “gender-affirming care.”

The matter has been in legal dispute for six years now, thanks to a change in administration twice as well as different executive orders and regulations.

The court ruled in Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra that a permanent injunction against enforcement of Section 1557 against the medical group should remain in place. Section 1557 under Obamacare “defined sex discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of ‘termination of pregnancy’ and ‘gender identity,'” the court wrote, while quoting from a 2016 federal regulation.

The federal judges rebuked the ACLU for trying to stop an injunction against future attempts to force Franciscan Alliance to commit abortions or mutilate kids because it’s not known how the regulations will look in the future. The court pointed out that the ACLU had previously argued for similar injunctions based on the possibility of a future regulation.

“It is always true that the Government’s interest may subtly evolve over time. If that hypothetical
chance is enough to defeat standing, then plaintiffs could never obtain injunctive relief to prevent future violations of the Free Speech Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, or any other lawsuit where means/ends scrutiny is involved,” the judges wrote.

“But that can’t be right. Courts have issued permanent injunctions in these contexts countless times. Throughout its storied history the ACLU has sought and obtained multiple permanent injunctions against statutes that failed heightened scrutiny,” the opinion stated.

Becket Law, the religious freedom legal nonprofit that represented Franciscan Alliance, celebrated the ruling.

“This ruling is a major victory for conscience rights and compassionate medical care in America,” Becket counsel Joseph Davis stated in a news release. “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.” 

“For years, our clients have provided excellent medical care to all patients who need it,” Davis said. “Today’s ruling ensures that these doctors and hospitals may continue to do this critical work in accordance with their conscience and professional medical judgment.”  

The ACLU has tried before to get Catholic doctors forced to commit abortions, despite it being ostensibly in support of civil liberties.

It previously tried and failed to get another chain of Catholic hospitals to commit abortions in 2015.

LifeSiteNews contacted the ACLU national media team and the Texas affiliate team on Monday morning to ask what its next steps would be in this case and to ask what punishments it would have wanted for medical professionals who refused to participate in abortions and transgender drugs and surgeries, but received no response.

LifeSiteNews also asked if civil liberties’ protections should include medical professionals who have moral problems with certain procedures.

Medical experts and formerly gender-confused individuals have raised concerns about ‘gender affirming care’

The push by the Biden administration to help kids take puberty blockers and cut off healthy reproductive organs is in contradiction to the testimony of individuals who formerly lived as gender-confused as well as medical experts.

LifeSiteNews has compiled a summary of key statements from leading medical officials, including the surgeon general of Florida, on the harms of so-called “gender-affirming care.”

A separate article details five men and women who were harmed by the transgender movement and took either drugs or had surgeries under the delusion they could change their sex.

Help therapist being attacked by Southern Poverty Law Center: LifeFunder

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