Nuns and Catholic hospitals challenge transgender mandate in court Eighth Circuit to review mandate forcing doctors to perform controversial procedures that may harm patients

WASHINGTON – Several Catholic hospitals, a Catholic university and the Religious Sisters of Mercy—a group of Catholic nuns who run health clinics to care for the elderly and the poor—will be in court this week challenging a federal mandate that forces doctors to ignore science and their medical judgment and perform controversial gender transition procedures, including on children, even if those procedures could cause permanent harm.

Those fighting the mandate are Catholic doctors, hospitals, and clinics who joyfully serve all patients regardless of sex or gender identity, and routinely provide top-notch care to transgender patients for everything from cancer to the common cold. The transgender mandate, however, threatens them with multimillion-dollar penalties for “sex discrimination” unless they perform controversial gender-transition procedures that can be deeply harmful to patients. Despite two different federal courts striking down the mandate as a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the Biden Administration has appealed.

What:
Oral Argument in Sisters of Mercy v. Becerra 

Who:
Luke Goodrich, VP & senior counsel at Becket 

When:
Wednesday, December 15, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. EST 

Where:
Audio available by telephone: 1-888-363-4749
Access Code: 5800357 

A Becket attorney will be available for comment following the hearing. 

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact Ryan Colby at media@becketlaw.org or 202-349-7219. Interviews can be arranged in English, Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.