ST. LOUIS – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing the American College of Pediatricians, together with seven states—including Missouri and Utah as co-leads—are suing the Biden administration for adopting a rule that forces medical professionals and insurance providers to perform or pay for harmful “gender-transition” procedures or face severe financial consequences. This is the third lawsuit ADF attorneys have filed against the administration’s attempt to rewrite federal health care law.
In May, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a new rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act that requires doctors to act against their sound medical judgment and perform harmful, often sterilizing procedures to make people, including children, appear to be the opposite sex, even if state law restricts these procedures. Additionally, the new rule requires insurance coverage for these procedures; coerces specific gender-related medical speech and the use of inaccurate pronouns; and forces medical facilities to provide access to sex-specific spaces based on gender identity.
“The Biden administration’s attempt to hijack medicine is the latest example of its unlawful overreach,” said ADF Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake. “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 harmful, often sterilizing procedures to make people appear as the opposite sex. We are urging the court to halt the administration’s vast overreach in health care.”
The American College of Pediatricians is a national organization of pediatricians and other health care professionals founded in 2002 and dedicated to protecting the health and well-being of children.
As the attorneys explain in the lawsuit, HHS is threatening to punish doctors who do not comply with the mandate by imposing huge financial penalties and excluding them from federally funded health care programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, effectively precluding doctors and states from providing health care for the most vulnerable children in low-income communities.
The attorneys filed the lawsuit, State of Missouri v. Becerra, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division.
ADF attorneys have filed similar cases against the administration’s new health care rule in State of Florida v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and McComb Children’s Clinic v. Becerra. Edward H. Trent of Schaerr Jaffe LLP, one of more than 4,500 attorneys in the ADF Attorney Network, will serve as co-counsel on behalf of American College of Pediatricians.
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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