by Laurel Duggan
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a case from a Catholic hospital challenging a ruling that forces it to sterilize patients through gender transition surgery.
Evan Minton, a patient seeking uterus removal surgery as part of the gender transition process, will be allowed to go forward with suing the Mercy San Juan Medical Center for canceling the surgery.
Minton seeks to compel the hospital to perform surgeries that directly contravene Catholic teachings, Dignity Health, which operates Mercy San Juan, told the court. The case “poses a profound threat to faith-based health care institutions’ ability to advance their healing ministries consistent with the teachings of their faith,” according to Dignity Health’s petition.
“It is unfortunate that the Court did not take this opportunity to definitively protect the religious liberty of hospitals and medical professionals who are asked to perform procedures that violate their conscience. But this case is far from final,” John Bursch, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “No medical professional should be compelled by force of law to choose between their faith and their job.”
The California Court of Appeals said Dignity Health does not have a constitutional right to violate California’s nondiscrimination law, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “The Supreme Court declined to uproot this ruling, stopping further attempts to authorize discrimination against trans people under the guise of religious liberty,” the ACLU said in a Monday statement.
“Sadly, the court turned its back on a hospital that believes, as a matter of faith and science, that it shouldn’t be forced to remove perfectly healthy reproductive organs,” Roger Severino told DCNF.
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Laurel Duggan is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
