Washington D.C., Aug 24, 2016 / 19:03 pm
Following the federal government stating that doctors cannot decline performing sex reassignment surgeries, a group of states, doctors, and hospitals are suing in the name of medical ethics.
"The effect is that there are doctors all across the country that are going to be asked to perform gender transition procedures, even when they believe it is going to be physically and emotionally harmful to the patient and against their best medical judgment," Luke Goodrich, deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told CNA.
"And this rule says if you follow your medical judgment, you can face massive liability."
Current health care law bans discrimination against patients on basis of sex. New regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services interpret such discrimination to include cases where requests for procedures involving gender reassignment are denied.