Seven states and a group of pediatricians will sue the Biden administration over what they say is a mandate for doctors to provide gender-transition procedures and require insurers to cover them.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is leading the coalition of seven states, said Wednesday, "Joe Biden is overstepping his legal authority to impose his radical transgender ideology on the American people."
It argues that HHS lacks statutory authority to promulgate the rule, misconstrues the prohibition against sex discrimination in the ACA, and violates the First and Fifth Amendment rights of healthcare providers.
The Biden administration is threatening to withhold federal funding from any health care provider that refuses to perform or endorse harmful and irreversible transgender procedures," Bailey said. "I filed suit to stand up against federal bureaucrats who are sphericalizing Missouri health care providers to carry out experimental, dangerous gender-transition procedures at taxpayer expense." Joining the legal action with Missouri are Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah.
The rule was published in April by HHS and changed the ACA's ban on "sex" discrimination to forbid "gender identity" discrimination whether an individual's gender identity matches his or her biological sex or not. This applies to both adults and minors.
It considers failing to offer or pay for transgender medical procedures, including sex-change operations and drugs, as discrimination and illegal under this law. Providers are at risk of losing the federal financial assistance, and this practice is barred from participating in Medicare and Medicaid.
The ACA does not mention "gender identity" explicitly or even sex-change operations for adults or children.
It is asking for a federal court order to bar HHS from enforcing the rule on the seven states and the American College of Pediatricians, also represented in the lawsuit, which is opposing the rule. Last week, a federal judge temporarily blocked HHS from enforcing the rule on 15 other states involved in a separate lawsuit.
Dr. Jill Simons, the acting executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, explained that the group filed a brief in support of the lawsuit, through which doctors are "never to be forced to violate sound medical judgment and perform life-altering and sterilizing interventions on their patients.".
"Our doctors take an oath to do no harm, but the Biden administration's rule forces them to break this oath and conduct procedures that are harmful and dangerous to our patients — vulnerable children," Simons added. "What the Biden administration is calling for is wrong and unlawful."
Julie Marie Blake of the Alliance Defending Freedom, ADF, Senior Counsel, who represents the American College of Pediatricians in the lawsuit, has called the rule an attempt of the Biden administration to "seize control" of medicine.
"The HHS rule will harm those suffering from gender dysphoria, particularly children, and punish doctors who seek to care for them," Blake said. "Medical professionals around the world and people who have been subjected to these experimental, body-altering procedures are sounding the alarm about the dangers. Yet the Biden administration is trying to force doctors to perform these harmful, often sterilizing procedures to make people appear as the opposite sex."
"We are asking the court to end the administration's vast overreach in healthcare," Blake concluded.