
CV NEWS FEED // The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops this week criticized the Biden Administration’s recent re-definition of biological sex in the Affordable Care Act for promoting an ideological view that contradicts the reality that men and women are different.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services updated Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act on April 26, expanding the prohibition of “discrimination on the basis of sex” to also prohibit discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.”
In response, the USCCB issued a statement on April 30 criticizing the change for its ideological tone.
“By including ‘sexual orientation and gender identity’ in the definition of ‘sex,’ the final regulations generally require health care workers to perform ‘gender transition’ procedures in the name of nondiscrimination,” the USCCB stated.
“At the same time,” the USCCB continued, “the regulations make modest improvements to the proposed regulations’ protections for the exercise of conscience, religious belief, and clinical judgment.”
Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty for the USCCB, stated that health care should uphold, not contradict, the truth that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God.
“The human right to health care flows from the sanctity of human life and the dignity that belongs to all human persons, who are made in the image of God,” Bishop Rhoades stated:
The same core beliefs about human dignity and the wisdom of God’s design that motivate Catholics to care for the sick also shape our convictions about care for preborn children and the immutable nature of the human person. These commitments are inseparable.
Bishop Rhoades noted that USCCB does appreciate that the changes do not try to impose an abortion provision mandate.
“These regulations, however, advance an ideological view of sex that, as the Holy See has noted, denies the most beautiful and most powerful difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference. I pray that health care workers will embrace the truth about the human person, a truth reflected in Catholic teaching, and that HHS will not substitute its judgment for their own,” he concluded.
