Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
Donald Trump’s administration has reversed an ObamaCare rule requiring healthcare providers and insurers in the United States to perform sex reassignment surgeries and abortions against their medical judgment or faith convictions.
Fox News reported on Friday that the policy shift redefines gender as a person’s biological sex, whereas an Obama-era regulation defined sex as “one’s internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.”
The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in its announcement that it “will enforce Section 1557 by returning to the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology.”
According to the Christian Post, Church leaders and conservative groups have come up to applaud the new Trump Admin policy, and others have called President Trump “the most pro-life president” the United States “has ever seen.”
In a statement, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said they welcome new health regulations that protect doctors’ rights to decline to perform abortions or “gender transition” procedures.
USCCB said the new policy restores “the long-standing position of the federal government that discrimination on the basis of ‘sex’ means just that and does not refer to ‘termination of pregnancy’ nor ‘gender identity.’ ”
On the other hand, LGBTQ rights activists decried the rule change calling it “repugnant.”
Others have already threatened to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration for attempting to remove what they call “basic health care protections from vulnerable communities including LGBTQ people.”
“These actions demonstrate how little this Administration values the life, health and safety of LGBTQ people,” said Sharita Gruberg of the Center for American Progress. “It’s even more of a disgrace to do so on the anniversary of the deadliest attack on the LGBTQ community in US history.”
In 2019, the Trump administration enacted a rule limiting transgender participation in the military, a rule Trump had pushed for since 2017. He said the military needed to focus on “decisive and overwhelming victory” without being weighed down by “tremendous medical costs and disruption” of having transgender personnel.
The Associated Press, Fox News contributed to this report.
