(PatriotWise.com) — Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, along with the attorneys general for six other states, filed a lawsuit in federal court last week against the US Department of Health and Human Services over its rule requiring healthcare providers to perform transgender procedures and forcing states to pay for it.
According to a July 10 press release from Attorney General Bailey’s Office, the HHS rule, which was not authorized by Congress, distorted the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) to require states and healthcare providers to comply, regardless of their positions on the “efficacy” or “wisdom” of transgender medical procedures.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, demands that the Biden administration withdraw the rule, arguing that it exceeded the enumerated powers of Congress, violated the Tenth Amendment rights of the states, and infringed on the First and Fifth Amendment rights of doctors and other healthcare providers.
In addition to Missouri, the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Idaho, and Arkansas. Also named as a plaintiff is the American College of Pediatricians.
The lawsuit argues that the new HHS rule would compel doctors to cause harm to children by forcing them to perform transgender procedures. It accuses HHS of threatening to punish healthcare providers and states that do not comply with the new rule by threatening to impose financial penalties and withhold federal funding for Medicaid, Medicare, and CHIP.
Attorney General Bailey said in the press release that President Biden had once again exceeded his constitutional authority to force on the American people a “radical transgender ideology.”
Bailey accused the Biden administration of “threatening to hold federal funding hostage” to force healthcare providers to “perform or affirm harmful and irreversible transgender procedures.”
The attorney general said he brought the lawsuit to prevent “out-of-touch federal bureaucrats” from forcing Missouri’s healthcare providers to perform “experimental and dangerous gender transition procedures” using taxpayer funding.
The president signed an executive order in June 2022 calling on HHS to expand access to transgender medical procedures and clarifying that federally-funded healthcare programs could not provide so-called conversion therapy.
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