The ACLU of Northern California announced it’s filed a lawsuit against St. Joseph Health, a Catholic health care network. The lawsuit claims that St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka discriminated against a “transgender man” – a woman who believes she’s a man – by refusing to allow a surgeon to perform a hysterectomy at the hospital.
Of course the ACLU ignores the obvious point that men don’t have uteruses, and therefore don’t need hysterectomies – except in the brave new world of transgender ideology. According to this ideology, people are the “gender” they believe they are, regardless of biological reality.
The hospital was following the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” which state, “Catholic health care organizations are not permitted to engage in immediate material cooperation in actions that are intrinsically immoral, such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and direct sterilization.” But the ACLU seems unconcerned about protecting the hospital’s religious freedom.
The lawsuitalleges that the hospital’s denial violates California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. When that legislation was passed in 1959, “sex” meant what it had always meant – being male or female. But since then, California has broadened the definition of “sex” to include “sexual orientation and gender identity.”
While the ACLU claims providing hormones and surgeries – such as bilateral mastectomies and hysterectomies – is the accepted standard of care for women who believe they are men, the sad truth is that studies have shown that such “transitioning” is not necessarily helpful or effective. A British review of over 100 follow-up studies found“that none of the studies provides conclusive evidence that gender reassignment is beneficial for patients.” A more recent study showed“sex-reassigned individuals were 4.9 times more likely to attempt suicide and 19.1 times more likely to die by suicide compared to controls.” Dressing like the opposite sex, hormones and surgery don’t address the underlying issues that lead someone to hate their body and believe they are the opposite sex.
The recent ACLU lawsuit isn’t the first time a Catholic hospital has come under fire for not cooperating with the transgender agenda. In 2017, a woman who believes she’s a man filed a lawsuitagainst a Catholic hospital near Sacramento. The hospital refused to allow her to undergo a hysterectomy, and stated “We do not provide elective sterilizations at Dignity Health’s Catholic facilities in accordance with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs) and the medical staff bylaws.” A similar case was filed in New Jerseywhen St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center denied a hysterectomy to a transgender-identified patient.
In another California case, a man who believes he’s a woman sued a Catholic-affiliated hospital for “gender discrimination” for denying him breast augmentation surgery. According to the client’s law firm, “Seton Hospital agreed to change its policy so as to provide for plastic surgeries on transgender women to the same extent that they would provide them on other women. The hospital also agreed to pay Ms. Hastings $200,000.”
When “sexual orientation and gender identity” are added to non-discrimination laws, they elevate these subjective, ill-defined categories to the same level as basic rights such as freedom of speech and religious freedom. As these laws proliferate, we’re likely to see more cases of faith-based medical providers under fire.
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