May 10, 2021
Today, Secretary Xavier Becerra announced that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will immediately begin enforcing prohibitions on “sex” discrimination in health care under Section 1557 of Obamacare to include sexual orientation and gender identity, allegedly in response to the Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County.
Roger Severino, Senior Fellow and Director of the HHS Accountability Project at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, issued the following statement:
“Becerra is threatening to put doctors and hospitals that disagree with current transgender ideology out of business, including those with medical, religious, or moral objections to conducting sex-reassignment surgeries on minors,” Severino said. “Becerra is trying to change the fundamental practice of medicine and science by the stroke of a pen, but will soon learn through lawsuits that sex as a biological reality won’t be so easily erased.
“This lawless action circumvents the public rulemaking process followed by both the Trump and Obama administrations on this issue and contradicts an existing court injunction. Worst of all, instead of respecting scientists and doctors who recognize objective biological realities in their professions, it brands them as bigots at risk of losing HHS funds,” Severino concluded.
Roger Severino was the Director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS from March 2017 to January 2021, where he oversaw the rollback of transgender mandate regulations under Obamacare and founded the HHS Conscience and Religious Freedom Division.
To request an interview with Roger Severino or another EPPC scholar, contact media@eppc.org.
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