HHS sued over rule that forces medical professionals to perform genital mutilations

05/22/2024 / By Laura Harris

McComb Children’s Clinic in Mississippi has filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for adopting a rule that forces medical professionals to perform harmful gender transition procedures or face severe financial consequences.

On May 6, the administration of President Joe Biden published a rule that includes “gender identity” in the federal health care nondiscrimination statute.

The rule forces healthcare professionals to risk severe penalties such as losing federal funding for treating and referring to patients by their biological sex. The rule also requires healthcare practitioners to follow unscientific standards of care and limits their power to set protective standards of care for health professionals.

However, McComb Children’s Clinic argues that this directive conflicts with both its medical judgment and Mississippi state law, which prohibits gender transition procedures on minors. This, in turn, forced McComb Children’s Clinic to file a lawsuit against HHS on May 13. (Related: Canadian Muslims organize “Million Person March” to banish gender ideology and child mutilations.)

“Doctors should be allowed to fulfill their Hippocratic Oath to do no harm and follow their medical judgment without fear of government intervention,” stated Matt Bowman, the director of regulatory practice and senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the attorneys representing McComb Children’s Clinic.

Bowman criticized the new HHS rule, claiming it forces doctors to perform “unnecessary procedures that remove healthy body parts and prescribe puberty blockers,” despite Congress not granting such authority to HHS.

The lawsuit, McComb Children’s Clinic v. Becerra, contends that the rule change to Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act imposes a government-mandated standard of care on virtually every healthcare entity in America. The clinic claims this new standard requires them to perform elective procedures, which they deem harmful to minors if they treat puberty complications.

State of Florida also filed a lawsuit against the new HHS rule

This legal action marks the second lawsuit ADF attorneys have initiated against the new HHS rule. The first, State of Florida v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, represents the Catholic Medical Association.

In the lawsuit, ADF attorneys, along with Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, argue that the rule change to Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act is an abuse of regulatory power. They claim it forces health care and medical insurance providers to classify body-altering and potentially dangerous procedures as necessary treatment.

“[T]he 2024 Rules would fundamentally redefine the practice of medicine and place [HHS Office for Civil Rights] lawyers in the strange position of overseeing – and second-guessing – the clinical and ethical judgments of health care professionals and state medical boards across the country,” the lawsuit states. “Section 1557 is an ordinary non-discrimination law, not a Trojan horse empowering OCR to play doctor and decree gender-transition interventions as the federal standard of care through threats of enforcement.”

Moody accused the Biden administration of “trying to go around our child-protection law to force the state to pay for puberty blockers and gender-transition surgery for children,” despite knowing that their state passed a law to protect children from “dangerous, irreversible gender-transition drugs and surgeries.”

“These rules trample states’ power to protect their own citizens and we will not stand by as Biden tries, yet again, to use the force of the federal government to unlawfully stifle Florida’s effort to protect children,” Moody said.

Furthermore, ADF Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake claimed that the new HHS rule represents a significant overreach by the federal government.

“The HHS rule will harm those suffering from gender dysphoria, particularly children, and punish doctors who seek to care for them. Medical professionals around the world and individuals who have undergone these experimental, body-altering procedures are warning about their risks. Yet the Biden administration is working to force doctors to perform these dangerous, often sterilizing procedures to make people appear as the opposite sex. This rule change contradicts legal precedent set by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, and we are urging the court to halt the administration’s vast overreach in health care.”

Gender.news has more stories about the promotion of transgender ideology.

Watch this interview series featuring Jennifer Bilek as she talks about who is behind the trans agenda.

This video is from the Hamilton-Moore Effect channel on Brighteon.com.