There is an interesting constitutional challenge brewing in Tennessee where 3,000 physicians and health care professionals are suing the Biden Administration over the mandate for doctors to perform gender transition procedures. One of the first changes ordered by the Biden Administration was redefine the discrimination laws to include the denial of such gender transition procedures. The case could force courts to address a direct conflict between anti-discrimination laws and religious values–a medical version of cases like Masterpiece Cake shop.. The Defendants include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Office for Civil Rights of the HHS, including Xavier Becerra, the secretary of the HHS, and Robinsue Frohboese, acting director and principal deputy of the Office for Civil Rights of the HHS.
Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provide that an individual shall not be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination on the grounds prohibited under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. One of the earliest acts of President Biden to sign an executive order upon entering office that required Section 1557 and Title IX be interpreted to include gender identity as a protected trait.
Title IX also prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), age or disability in covered health programs or activities.
These medical experts challenge the government’s authority to effectively order them to perform gender transition procedures, prescribe hormones or puberty blockers. Additionally, they claim the Biden Administration is forcing them conform their speech to gender identity, rather than biological sex, regardless of their medical judgment or conscientious objections.
Notably, the first claim in the Complaint below is brought under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) which has proven repeatedly successful in challenges to the unilateral actions of the Biden Administration.
The second claim is brought under both the First and Fifth Amendments in raising claims of free speech and free association:
“Plaintiffs oppose the gender identity mandate’s requirements of, and restrictions on, their speech including: having to offer and refer for gender interventions; the use of pronouns; medical screening questions; medical coding and record keeping; referrals; policies governing speech and information at their medical practices; assurances of compliance with Section 1557; and mandatory notices of compliance with Section 1557.”
The third claim is under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) which prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion, unless the government demonstrates that the burden is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling government interest. 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(a): “The gender identity mandate substantially burdens the Religious Plaintiffs’ exercise of religion by requiring them to engage in the objectionable practices in violation of their beliefs.”
The fourth claim is based on the First and Fifth Amendments in the alleged denial of freedom of religion. Notably, this claim reveals a division among plaintiffs, which the Complaint addresses by creating a subset of claims:
“All Plaintiffs bring this Free Exercise Clause claim except the nonreligious members of ACPeds. CMA asserts the claim on behalf of its members, and ACPeds brings it on behalf of its religious members. Dr. Dassow brings the claim on behalf of herself. Collectively, these are referred to as the Religious Plaintiffs.”
The fifth and final claim is based on federalism that the order on gender identity exceeds Congress’s Article I enumerated powers and transgresses on the reserved powers of the State under the federal constitution’s structural principles of federalism and the Tenth Amendment.
Some of these claims like the federalism challenge will be difficult to maintain since the government maintains national medical rules tied to federal programs. However, this is a major challenge that could force a ruling on whether physicians retain the right to decline procedures or practices based on religious objections.
Here is the complaint: American College of Pediatricians v. Becerra
Gender transition….geez, maybe Trump wasn’t so bad after all.
I am assuming the Democrats want to pass legislation that forces Jewish people working at an advertising agency to build a campaign to support Nazi’s and black hotel operators to welcome the KKK conference and make all teachers teach Judeo-Christian values (oh wait they don’t like that!) and to outlaw naturopaths. This type of legislation is targeted and unconstitutional. Let’s just agree!
BREAKING: Pro-Antifa High School Teacher in California Admits Communist Indoctrination of Students … ‘I Have 180 Days to Turn Them into Revolutionaries’ … Other Teachers ‘on the Same Page’ … ‘There is a Reason Why These Kids are Becoming Further Left’
https://www.projectveritas.com/news/breaking-pro-antifa-high-school-teacher-in-california-admits-communist/
This is another front in gender wars.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/man-exposed-penis-women-underage-girls-los-angeles-spa-registered-sex-offender-history-indecent-exposure-new-felony-charges-filed
Who didn’t see that one coming? Politicians mostly.
“. . . the government’s authority to effectively order them to perform gender transition procedures . . .”
Compulsory labor.
Didn’t we fight a war to end that barbaric practice?
I’d like to see the doctors sue not based on the RFRA but on the basis that nobody should be forced to perform harmful experimental medical procedures that are contrary to their medical training. Nobody should be forced to give drugs that destroy fertility or to mutilate healthy teenagers.
Democrats proclaimed that Trump would cause a nuclear war. That he was too mentally ill or addled to have the nuclear codes.
We had 4 years of no new wars, economic prosperity up until the pandemic, and a roaring return already begun, Middle East Peace Deals, investment in historically black colleges, he was open to a media who hated him and took their questions, and much more. The only wars he started were pointless Twitter wars.
Now Democrats have Joe Biden, whose cognitive decline is on display for all the world to see. He has ushered in a new age for Taliban terrorism in Afghanistan, caused the rout of our military, abandoned many American citizens and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Holders. Joe Biden rambles through nonsensical statements, and then turns his back on reporters asking questions. He keeps saying he’s “not allowed” to answer certain questions or call on any reporter not on a list he’s given. The Empathizer in Chief repeatedly checked his watch when the 13 military whose death he caused arrived. When speaking to grieving families, he kept talking about his own son, making it about himself, and allegedly got angry and walked away when Gold Star families took issue with that.
Trump was too bourgeoise for the Democrats. They’ve grown used to being the only ones insulting people, and were horrified to receive the same treatment.
Well, now we’ve got a President who refuses to take a cognitive function test, clearly disintegrating. The world is a far more dangerous place today. And this guy who can’t stumble through a speech without a teleprompter is going to force doctors to perform medical treatment with which they disagree?
Good one, Democrats.
There is no purpose to be served by a cognative test of Biden – he is in decline. Whatever his MOCA score is, it will be lower in a few months.
Few beleive he is actually excercising the office of president.
If Democrats and the left continues to wish to keep him as an embarrassing figurehead – let them.
This does not get better.
I questioned republican enthusiasm for 2022 when Biden took office – Biden took office with the wind at his back. He had a vaccine, he had a strong economy that was likely to get stronger as recovery progressed. Biden and democrats needed to do very little to take responsibility for and benefit from a bright future.
Yet, they chose not to. It does not matter much who is calling the shots – they are doing badly.
We have gone from a tail wind to a head wind in 9 months.
One of the big changes is that not only was the Trump economy strong – it was stable, there were no large q2q changes, a bad month was a tiny bit worse than expected, a good one was slightly better than expected. We are back to the volatile economy of Obama.
Except possibly worse. Reigning in the stagflation of the 70’s was incredibly painful – yet we are rushing headlong to recreate that.
Turley Pooh, Pooh’s the non religious claims – but since when should anyone be forced to do what another person wants ?
Doctors are of varying views over all kinds of medical issues. If we do not like the treatment recomendations of our doctor – we get a 2nd oppinion. We do not FORCE our doctor to impose the medical treatment we would prefer.
This is nonsense without an end. Will we subject Obesity to Title XI in the future ?
It is your body – you are free to do with it as you wish. But you are NOT free to force others to do as you wish.
All this is, is another reason PPACA should have ended up in the dustbin of history – we can thank Roberts – Twice for F’ing that up – as well as McCaine.
I remember when the issue of gay marriage came up in CA. I supported gay marriage, but some of my relatives were opposed. How does it affect you personally if two men in love get married and commit to each other? How does it affect you if a gay partner has spousal rights to make medical decisions in the event of accident or injury?
The Left proved how wrong I was.
This wasn’t about tolerance, or letting everyone be free. They went against the will of voters in Prop 8. Activists sought and destroyed those who supported the ban on gay marriage. You could lose your job when the activists outed you to your employer. They threatened companies whose CEOs supported Prop 8, or who employed those who supported Prop 8.
Then they went after businesses who didn’t want to participate in a gay wedding ceremony. They called up little Mom and Pop pizza parlors, who had never catered any wedding ever. They asked hypothetical questions about whether if the event arose, they would ever want to cater a gay wedding. A negative meant they would be sued and targeted for destruction, as well as deluged with fraudulent pizza orders. They went after photographers, who could no longer choose which events they wanted to document. They went after bakers who refused to make custom confections that celebrated being gay, gay marriage, or transgender. They taught school children that they were bigots if they opposed gay marriage, and their parents were bigots for same.
It’s all about force with the Left. If you disagree with them, they will try to impoverish you, and some will even assault you.
I regret ever supporting this movement, because of how abusive and intolerant it turned out to be.
It’s the Fascism of the Left.
“The Left proved how wrong I was.”
Marriage is a two-part contract. One part is religious or whatever. The other part is a civil contract between two individuals. The typical married person has combined the two parts.
Religious marriage doesn’t comply with the laws of the state. A civil contract does.
The civil contract has benefits and disadvantages. Many of the laws that create problems one can discuss had to do with responsibility. Traditionally, marriages had children, and laws were created to protect the children and women who had to raise them.
IMO though I might not have any objection to the results, I believe the laws were poorly written and therefore became problematic.
Lawyers could always draw up a contract that would provide the same fundamental marriage rights to gays as heterosexuals. One lawyer I know well drew up many such contracts, but in the end, many gays did not want to live with the disadvantages and paid for the contract they never signed.
Things like social security benefits take money from some to give to others despite the reasoning having to do with raising children. Single men and single women are disadvantaged by the law because they cannot utilize social security benefits in the same manner.
The problem isn’t the inability to have the same rights as heterosexuals. It’s more of a financial thing. Yes, I know there were laws against homosexuals. The cure was not new laws but getting rid of old laws and writing laws that did what they intended.
I have myriads of gay friends, Judging by my circle – less than half the country is straight. These are friends whose I have stood by when they were being persecuted and fought for their rights for decades.
I have been mortified as so many have flipped from the abused to the abuser. I would have thought that decades of oppression would have taught them the evils of oppressing others.
Yet in so many instances I have been wrong about that.
You are free to love whoever you wish – and maybe they will love you back. You are free to do with your body as you wish.
But you are not free to force your wishes on others.
Turley continues to fixate on freedom of religion – but why can you force doctors who have no religious objection to something to provide a patient the treatment they want when the Doctor for whatever reasons opposes ?
I am an architect – can a client hire me and then afterwords FORCE me to design them a Bauhaus building or a French Provincial ?
Even if I have no objections to the clients preferences – Am I not still free to say for ANY REASON – that I will not do some things.
There is a great deal of medical and mental health controversy over sex reassignment. There is no change in the frequency of suicides afterwards, there is no evidence of mental health improvement. there is a great deal of reason for any doctor to choose not to wish to be a part of sexual reasignment.
There is no fundimental difference between the doctors right to choose NOT to perform reasignment surgery and your right to choose to have it. You are always free to find a 2nd oppinion.
I am libertarain – ALL Drugs should be legal. the FDA should be shuttered. But my willingness to allow you to take whatever drugs you wish, does not mean you are entitled to FORCE me to provide them to you.
I support your right to commit suicide – but I will not help you to do it.
Each of our individual rights END the instant that we require FORCE against another to accomplish them.
It always boils down to force with the Left. They aren’t content to have their own beliefs; they want to force it on you, too.
Gender reassignment of children is child abuse. It physically castrates boy children and sterilizes girl children. Forever. How can that be justified when the child is below the age of consent? Their brains are not mature enough to understand the lifelong consequences. The vast majority of children who suffer gender dysphoria grow out of it by adulthood.
Gender reassignment in males produces a wound that the body tries to close. It’s not a functioning vagina with its own mucosal membranes. They use skin grafts that will never function like a female vaginal tract. This is an extremely painful surgery, and the result might not be satisfactory. They can’t walk or sit or get comfortable for a while. The patient has to keep the wound open with certain self care for about a year until it heals. After that, the artificial body cavity will require specialized care forever. The skin that is used to line the cavity was never intended to be inside the body, without airflow. Therefore, it is prone to constant infections and requires regular douching.
People with gender dysphoria go through all this pain and expense, only to have something that might look like a female genitalia, and might not, and regardless will need special care forever. Sometimes, drastic surgery does not solve all their problems, and it cannot really be undone.
Imagine the skilled nursing that this population is going to need in their elder years.
There is a study out of Sweden that found statistically high rates of depression and suicide post op.
From the initial rush to get “the surgery”, many transgender now opt to stick to top surgery and leave the bottom alone.
There are doctors who look at these facts and want nothing to do with gender reassignment medicine. They are not going to be proficient in gender reassignment if they oppose the practice.
Biden would force these doctors to participate, yet it’s the doctors who could be sued for malpractice. It is entirely possible that this gender reassignment craze is going to crash in an avalanche of lawsuits. Parents are going to sue the schools for curriculum that appears to deliberately create gender confusion. Parents and patients are going to sue doctors for castrating people.
The castratti of opera is considered a dark page in human history, along with the enormous numbers of male slaves castrated by Muslim slavers to create eunuchs. All of this is generally considered bad. Why would a resurgence in interest in castration and sterilization be viewed with favor by future generations? One thing is for certain. There will be no future generations descended from people who get these surgeries.
Well put and dead on target. These kids are never told the reality that they are altering their life forever. Very few people will ever be physically attracted to them after they make this choice. An artificial vagina aka an unhealed wound is just not something that arouses most men. You can’t replace pheromones.
Their brains are not mature enough to understand the lifelong consequences.
Karen, the issue of lack of fully developed brain is never discussed. The brain, particularly the limbic system and prefrontal cortex, are not mature until age 25, give or take. It defies science that parents, government, educators and journalists treat individuals under age 21, for example, as having the competencies to make such weighty decisions. Parents are to blame for not protecting them from themselves. Since you’re in the medical sciences, you might appreciate the following quotes. Otherwise I enjoyed your comments on this topic. I was unaware of the details of tissue care and risks therein for artificial vaginal cavities.
Longitudinal MRI studies have confirmed that a second surge of neuronal growth occurs just before puberty.This surge is similar to that noticed during infancy and consists of a thickening of the grey matter. Following neuronal proliferation, the brain rewires itself from the onset of puberty up until 24 years old, especially in the prefrontal cortex….. Furthermore, glutamatergic neurotransmission predominates, whereas gamma-aminobutyric acid neurotransmission remains under construction, and this might be responsible for immature and impulsive behavior and neurobehavioral excitement during adolescent life.
See:
Arain M, Haque M, Johal L, Mathur P, Nel W, Rais A, Sandhu R, Sharma S. Maturation of the adolescent brain. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2013;9:449-461
doi: 10.2147/NDT.S39776
Adults and children are different cases.
Much if not all of what you say about the free choices of adults may be true.
If an adult wishes to commit suicide – they should have the right to do so.
The right to mutilate their body is no different.
But your choices with respect to yourself, your body may not morally FORCE others to act.
If someone wishes to help you committ suicide, or provides you with Heroin, or will transform your body as you wish – that is their choice and I have no business interfering. There is little consequential difference between adult sex reassignment and plastic surgery.
I support both – I have no personal interest in either.
I also have no problems with one Plastic Surgeon telling you that he will not perform the change you wish – for any reason – or none.
The fact that you want something does not FORCE others to give it to you.
Not a Vagina, not 48DD breasts.
I would note that one of the more significant problem areas with sex reasignment is FTM not MTF.
In the past sex reassignment has primarily been MTF, but in the 21st century this fairly abruptly changed.
Anxiety generally – but particularly in women has been increasing dramatically.
Further other body image mental health problems in women – anorexia and Bulimia have dramatically declined being replaced with gender confusion. i beleive in the UK FTM sex reasignment spiked something like 4000% and anorexia and Bulimia nearly vanished.
It is well known that myriads of body dissatisfaction issues are symptoms of other mental health problems.
If you do not correct the mental health problem changing the body accomplishes nothing, and may even be harmful.
Btu even if that is wrong – or even if it is not, if you are adult and you wish to change your body – you are free to do so.
But you are not free to force others to make your wish come true.
When will the lawyers representing this group demand that the 46th President take a cognitive test? His ineptitude is on full display.
The doctors have taken a vow to do no harm. This goes beyond chilling. This executive order was not penned by the President. He can barely stumble through reading a teleprompter. He is diminished. The world knows this. It is excruciating to watch.
This is really about raw power by whom ever is actually running the White House. This is one piece of what appears to be a larger plan to destroy this nation.
Godspeed to the doctors and their cause.
“When will the lawyers representing this group demand that the 46th President take a cognitive test?”
Four years from the date that lawyers demanded that the 45th President take a cognitive test (you know, the president who was proud of being able to remember “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV”). I expect that Biden will do at least as well as Trump did.
Trump aced it. As far as Dementia Joe, we will never know. No way his handlers allow him to take it.
He said that it was a difficult test, when it’s designed to be easy for anyone who no cognitive impairment. He said “they say ‘That’s amazing. How did you do that?,'” when no competent doctor is going to say it’s amazing that someone can repeat 5 words back in order after a few minutes. A random 5 year old can do that. Biden should take it too. It’s a routine diagnostic tool to use with older people.
Trump phrases many things oddly.
The MOCA was neither designed to be easy or hard.
It is not an intelligence test – as Trump tried to claim.
It is a test of a variety of different forms of cognitive impairment.
You can not “ace” it, you can only test as unimpaired or to some degree impaired.
My father was an intelligent person. He developed vascular dementia. I watched as his MOCA scores declined steadily.
His “intelligence” never waned. Worse still he knew what was happening to him. He also developed all kinds of tricks to hide his decline – and these all worked – for a time.
But you can not cheat on a MOCA.
Watching Biden is heart rending for me. I relive the last years of my fathers life.
I find forcing him to pretend to be president to be incredibly cruel.
Trump did as well as one can do – “normal” – while his remarks as many of Trump’s remarks are odd, cheerleading about everything, and trying to make not being cognatively impaired into a great acomplishment, the FACT still was the results were NORMAL – which is the best you can do on a MOCA.
The odds of Biden getting normal results anytime in the past 3 years are slim to none.
Regardless, you can hope whatever you want – once the decline starts it is inexorable.
There are leaked medical records claiming Biden has had 2 strokes and has a heart arithmya that results in strokes.
If that is true there are treatments – and if Biden has no other health issues that are in conflict it is possible that drugs can slow the decline.
Regardless, you do not come back. There is plenty of evidence from public appearances that Biden already has several deficits.
You can compare video of him 5 years ago to today and see marked cognative differences.
These are CHANGES – they are not artifacts of Biden’s quirky public delivery.
What is being done with him is cruel.
I hear that in third world countries there are only 2 genders whereas here we have 16 to 20 genders for the same 2 basic genders. One of these is stands is wrong??
In Spanish-speaking nations, they use the scientific sex or “sexo” (i.e. male and female), and have not succumbed (taken a knee) to the consensus that conflates sex and gender (i.e. masculine and feminine, sex-correlated physical and mental attributes). The exceptional conditions from homosexual to intersexual to neosexual etc. are in the transgender (i.e. a state or process of divergence from normal) spectrum, and there is no confusion, no parades, no political congruence (“=”) or inclusive exclusion, but principled tolerance.
That said, transgender conversion therapy is not the wicked solution (i.e. planned parent/hood), but it does use surgical, medical, and/or psychiatric corruption to force a peculiar social outcome, despite the clinical evidence (Hopkins) that demonstrates trans/homosexual orientation stability and a progressive trans/neo instability where most of the confused will eventually reconcile body and mind, and others are not helped by medical and psychiatric conversion therapy.
Biden to sign an executive order upon entering office that required Section 1557 and Title IX be interpreted to include gender identity as a protected trait.
I’m at a loss as to the governments interest in this. And if that interest can’t be advanced by a much less invasive manner.
The Progressive Church, Synagogue, Temple, Corporation, Clinic, and followers will accept nothing less than normalization (i.e. promotion, celebration) of the transgender spectrum (e.g. homosexual, quasisexual). And where they normalized planned parent/hood (e.g. reproductive rites), their religious/ethical code (Pro-Choice) that denies a woman and man’s dignity and agency, and reduces human life to a negotiable asset, does not impair them from engaging in medical and psychiatric experiments (e.g. clinical cannibalism) for social progress.
It is quite odd to see politics …the politics of the left so twisted they must adhere to some religious like zeal for multitudes of genders of a whim , defined by the mentally ill among us and the politicos that worship such insanity . Gender – by definition is either male or female…period , end of discussion. The only gray area are hermaphrodites , but then again only one set of their genitalia is viable so there is that. If you are neither…well are you human ? , likely not. Gender confused people , well they are what they were born as and identifying otherwise is a joke – on all of us and nature.
But in our “woke” times the goobermint minded left is waging a jihad to make insanity sane…. sorry my left bent friends nature is what it is , not what you demand it to be defined or categorized as by selfish or insane whims.
Its get worse and worse with the handlers running demented Biden. They have no intention of reversing course.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9947445/Two-FDA-vaccine-regulators-RESIGN-clashing-WH-COVID-boosters.html
Two top FDA vaccine regulators RESIGN ‘in fury at White House’ for ‘politicizing’ COVID boosters by announcing third shots for all before the agency gave medical approval
Dr. Marion Gruber and her deputy Dr. Philip Krause will step down this fall
Gruber leads the Office of Vaccines Research and Review at the FDA
She played a key role in approving vaccines for protection against COVID-19
But is reportedly frustrated at White House announcement of booster shots
Biden administration wants to give boosters for all three vaccines in use in US
But the FDA has yet to rule on booster doses for the general public
Some see Biden’s move as politicized and premature before FDA approval
Dr. Marion Gruber. Is she related to Jonathan Gruber, liar in chief of Obama Care. Does anybody know?
It should terrify everyone, no matter what your position on the transgender issue, to see the state attempt to override the medical opinion of liscensed doctors. If I wanted to consult a politician about my medical problems, I could call my senator. But I’d rather speak to my specialist. The Biden administration is full of confused “woke” freaks who are desperately throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks — because they know that this will be the last year they have any leverage to carry out their dysfunctional programs.