On Saturday, a federal judge in Texas issued a court order to negate an Obama administration policy that provides anti-discriminatory protections to transgender healthcare and abortion-related services under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Texas is one of eight states and three Christian healthcare groups protesting a rule that would prevent “discrimination on the basis of gender identity and termination of pregnancy.”
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor granted an injunction the day before the policy would take effect, stating that it violates the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law which outlines the way federal agencies operate.
In August, he prevented another Obama administration policy that would have required public schools to allow transgender students to choose the bathroom best suited to their gender identity.
In O’Connor’s 46-page opinion, the plaintiffs stated that the new law would “require them to perform and provide insurance coverage for gender transitions and abortions, regardless of their contrary religious beliefs or medical judgment.”
The judge also ruled that the new policy limits the rights of private healthcare providers under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
White House spokesperson Katie Hill denounced the injunction.
“Today’s decision is a setback, but hopefully a temporary one, since all Americans – regardless of their sex or sexual orientation – should have access to quality, affordable health care free from discrimination,” she said.
When the ACA—popularly referred to as Obamacare—was voted into law in 2010, it came with an anti-discrimination clause intended to prevent insurance providers from denying or overcharging consumers based on age or sex.
The new policy seeks to expand on the original law by incorporating a definition of sex discrimination that includes transgender and abortion services.
The rule would define gender identity as “an individual’s internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female, and which may be different from an individual’s sex assigned at birth.”
