Medical team preparing equipment for surgery in operation room. Via Shutterstock / null
Denver, Colo., Jun 21, 2023 / 15:45 pm (CNA).
Catholic organizations and medical professionals won’t be forced to perform gender-transition surgeries or provide insurance coverage for them after the Biden administration declined to defend the challenged “transgender mandate” federal rules with an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Becket, a religious-liberty-focused legal group, served as legal counsel for a coalition of Catholic organizations that represented hospitals, doctors, and clinics in the case known as Sisters of Mercy v. Becerra.
In January 2021, a federal district court ruled that the intrusion on the Catholic plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion was sufficient to show “irreparable harm.” A three-judge panel of the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in a Dec. 9, 2022, decision sided with the lower court’s ruling. The Biden administration had appealed the lower court’s ruling but did not ask the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to the appellate ruling by the June 20 deadline.
“After multiple defeats in court, the federal government has thrown in the towel on its controversial, medically unsupported transgender mandate,” Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket legal group, said June 21. “Doctors take a solemn oath to ‘do no harm,’ and they can’t keep that oath if the federal government is forcing them to perform harmful, irreversible procedures against their conscience and medical expertise.”
The ruling ends a long legal battle related to a similar rule issued under the Obama administration in 2016.
The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services issued the contested rule in January 2021. It revised Section 1557 health care rules under the 2010 Affordable Care Act to add “sexual orientation and gender identity” and “reproductive health care services” including “pregnancy termination” to existing “protections against discrimination on the basis of sex.” The rule also reversed Trump-era conscience protections that sought to allow medical professionals to opt out of performing procedures against their beliefs.
The rule changes meant that Catholic doctors would be forced to perform purported sex change operations and that Catholic organizations would be forced to cover the procedures in their health insurance plans.
The Catholic plaintiffs filed the legal challenge to the Biden administration’s mandate. The Catholic groups argued the mandate violated their religious freedom and their conscientious objections protected by federal law.
Plaintiffs included the Religious Sisters of Mercy and their health system and hospitals joined by the Catholic Benefits Association, the Catholic Medical Association, the University of Mary, the Diocese of Fargo, and Catholic Charities of North Dakota. They were also joined by the state of North Dakota.
Goodrich said the Catholic doctors and hospitals provide “vital care to patients in need, including millions of dollars in free and low-cost care to the elderly, poor, and underserved.”
“This is a win for patients, conscience, and common sense,” he said in a statement.
The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops condemned the federal rule in a July 2022 statement. The bishops objected to requiring health care workers “to perform life-altering surgeries to remove perfectly healthy body parts.”
The bishops characterized the rule as “a violation of religious freedom and bad medicine.”
The mandate was challenged in another federal lawsuit, Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra, which resulted in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the mandate in an August 2022 decision. The deadline to appeal that decision passed last November. In that case, religious medical groups including Franciscan Alliance, Christian Medical and Dental Society, and Specialty Physicians of Illinois had challenged the mandate.
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A Chase bank building in Wilmington, Delaware. / Credit: Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
CNA Staff, Mar 25, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Legislators in several states are moving to address the practice of “debanking” as part of an effort to stop what some critics say are anti-conservative measures employed by major U.S. financial institutions.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines debanking as “the act by a bank of closing someone’s account because they are regarded as a risk legally, financially, or to the bank’s reputation.” Critics have claimed that the practice is used by banks to antagonize certain groups, including conservatives and other political activists.
For example, the Trump Organization filed a lawsuit earlier this month against one of the largest banks in the United States. President Donald Trump claims he was a victim of debanking after Capital One allegedly closed hundreds of his organization’s accounts soon after his supporters’ Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.
In her recently-released memoir, Melania Trump alleged that she and her son, Barron, were also debanked.
The Ruth Institute, a global coalition designed to equip Christians to defend the family, alleged it was debanked in 2017. Just two years ago, a Memphis-based Christian charity called the Indigenous Advance Ministries also claimed that it had been debanked by Bank of America.
In another high-profile case, in 2022 former U.S. senator and ambassador Sam Brownback announced that his nonprofit group the National Committee for Religious Freedom had been debanked.
Ambassador Sam Brownback speaks on Feb. 6, 2018. Credit: Jonah McKeown/ CNA
Over the past decade, other high-ranking individuals and grassroots organizations have reportedly faced debanking, including Nigel Farage, who led the Brexit effort in the United Kingdom; evangelist and motivational speaker Nick Vujicic; Moms for Liberty, a parental rights advocacy group; Christian author and preacher Lance Wallnau; and Timothy Two Project International, a Christian ministry.
U.S. bishops ‘monitoring’ debanking; legislators move to address
While it’s unclear to what extent debanking has affected U.S. Catholics, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops acknowledged the phenomenon in its 2025 religious liberty report.
“In recent years, individuals have raised concerns that banks are discriminating on the basis of political and religious viewpoints,” the report read.
“In response to incidents like these, some states have begun passing laws intended to prevent politically motivated debanking,” the bishops noted. “However, the U.S. government argues that these laws hamstring banks, who need to be able to account for potential customers’ exposure to foreign actors. The lack of transparency, though, makes it difficult to ascertain why someone like Ambassador Brownback would be debanked.”
According to the report, the USCCB is “monitoring this issue but has not taken a position on it.”
Taking action against debanking
Some lawmakers are moving to address the controversy via legislation.
An anti-debanking bill in Idaho was sent to the state governor for signature last week.
The Transparency in Financial Services Act would prohibit “large financial institutions from discriminating against customers based on their political or religious views” and would give customers the right to request the reason for denial from an institution.
Montana’s Republican-sponsored Equality in Financial Services Act and South Carolina’s anti-debanking bill — similar to Idaho’s bill — have made some progress in the state Legislature, while Georgia’s Freedom of Speech and Belief Act failed to pass at the beginning of March.
Some see changes in bank policy, or even legal changes, as potential solutions to debanking.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — a legal group committed to protecting religious freedom and freedom of speech — worked with Indigenous Advance Ministries to file a consumer complaint following its alleged debanking in 2022.
“No American should ever fear losing access to their bank account due to their religious or political beliefs,” Lathan Watts, ADF’s vice president of public affairs, told CNA.
In its 2023 Viewpoint Diversity Score Index, ADF found that 7 out of 10 of the largest commercial banks — including Chase — have “hate speech” or “reputational risk” policies that contribute to debanking.
JPMorgan Chase, a top American bank, recently adjusted its policy, agreeing to protect clients against political and religious debanking in its code of conduct after 19 attorneys general petitioned the bank to cease its debanking practices in 2023.
“Chase’s policy change is a significant step by our nation’s largest bank to uphold financial access for all Americans,” Watts said. “This change provides necessary protections for customers like Ambassador Brownback, whose account at the National Committee for Religious Freedom was unexpectedly canceled in 2022.”
Watts shared his hope that other banks will take similar measures.
“Alliance Defending Freedom actively engaged with Chase in these negotiations, and we are hopeful that other banks will follow suit in safeguarding fundamental financial freedoms,” Watts said.
Jennifer Roback Morse, the founder and president of the Ruth Institute — an organization dedicated to combating the effects of the sexual revolution — recalled her own experience allegedly being debanked.
“In 2017, the Ruth Institute was one of the first organizations to be attacked in the banking arena,” Morse told CNA. “In our case, our credit card processor cut us off with no notification, or explanation, except to say that we ‘violated its standards.’”
Ruth Institute President Jennifer Roback Morse speaks on “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on June 13, 2019. Credit: “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo/EWTN News screenshot
While there was no clear explanation, Morse believes it was due to a leftist law center labeling the organization as a hate group.
“We surmised this was because we were listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s ‘Hate Map’ for our opposition to the redefinition of marriage and other LGBT-issues,” Morse said. “Thankfully, we were able to secure another credit card processor fairly quickly.”
Morse told CNA that banking “is a highly regulated, semi-monopolistic industry, comparable in some respects to public utilities such as electricity and water.”
“I am in favor of banks being legally required to be transparent and even-handed in their standards,” she said.
“Alternatively, if banks are permitted to engage in viewpoint discrimination,” she argued, “I would urge that bakers, florists, therapists, and other professionals also be permitted to refuse service to potential customers for any reason they choose.”
“A disappointed customer can find an alternative photographer a lot easier than they can find an alternative bank,” Morse noted. “And it is a lot easier to participate in the business world without a photographer or florist than to survive without banking services.”
‘A balanced approach’
While conservative legislators are pushing these anti-debanking bills, support for this legislation is not entirely united within the conservative movement.
A recent poll found that while a majority of conservatives are concerned about debanking, nearly three-quarters of conservatives expressed support for banks having the right to choose their own clients.
The poll by the Tyson Group found that conservatives “do not support broad government intervention that prevents financial institutions from making risk-based assessments when determining their customers.”
“When informed that legislation could force businesses to provide services to customers at odds with their values and the conservative movement, many expressed hesitations,” the study noted.
“As conservatives push for greater accountability from regulators, they also seek a balanced approach to debanking that avoids unintended consequences and protects the rights of both consumers and businesses.”
Some opponents of anti-debanking laws maintain that restrictions against debanking could have unintended consequences.
In South Carolina, for example, an anti-debanking bill under consideration, the Equality in Financial Services Act, would prevent financial institutions from discriminating when providing financial services.
But a Republican executive committeeman from Richland, South Carolina, is concerned that such an anti-debanking law could require pro-life banks to work with abortionists.
“Stopping abortion and protecting children requires winning hearts and minds but also cutting off the financial pipeline that enables these activities,” Eaddy Roe Willard, Richland GOP executive committeeman, told CNA. “Misguided legislation at the state level will only make it harder to do that.”
Father David Reamsnyder receives Anna West and other students into the Church at St. Anthony Parish in Hillsdale, Michigan, on Easter. / Credit: Rosemary Surdyke
CNA Staff, Sep 3, 2024 / 13:16 pm (CNA).
St. Anthony’s Catholic Parish in rural Mi… […]
Detroit, Mich., Nov 21, 2018 / 02:56 pm (CNA).- A federal judge in Detroit ruled Tuesday that a law banning female genital mutilation (FGM) in the United States is unconstitutional as it is currently written. This ruling dismisses six charges of FGM against a Michigan doctor in the first court case challenging the FGM ban in the U.S.
Female genital mutilation, or the cutting or removal of a female’s clitoris and labia, had officially been banned in the United States since 1997 under the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act.
Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was arrested in 2017 and was accused of cutting the genitals of at least six girls at a clinic in the Detroit area, Fox 2 Detroit reports. The defense argued that the doctor was not cutting, but “scraping” the genitalia.
U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman ruled that congress does not have the authority to make FGM illegal because the ban fell under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Since the FGM is not “commercial or economic in nature,” Friedman wrote, the clause is not applicable in this case.
The three adults charged in the case— Nagarwala, another doctor and his wife— are members of the Dawoodi Bohra, a small Indian Shiite Muslim sect located in a suburb of Detroit.
Nagarwala’s lawyers cited religious freedom to defend her actions, saying she and the other doctor were being “persecuted for practicing their religion by a culture and society that doesn’t understand their beliefs and is misinterpreting what they did.”
Until modern times, the cutting or removal of female genitalia was considered a “cure” for various ills – hysteria, excessive sexual desire, lesbianism, etc. and was covered by some insurance providers well into the 1970s.
Now, FGM is widely understood by the United Nations and numerous other international human rights groups as a “harmful traditional practice.” The procedure has no health benefits for women, multiple health risks, and is considered a human rights violation. Some of those health risks include severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later cysts, infections, complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
In the United States, an estimated 500,000 girls under the age of 13 have had the cutting procedure or are at risk of receiving it. The practice is found in some Christian communities as well as Muslim— many religious leaders, including Pope Francis, have spoken out against FGM.
Nagarwala still faces conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and obstruction charges, according to Fox 2.
I don’t totally understand the complexity here, but if the doctor, who exercises his Hippocratic oath, would advise the “patient” to see a Psychiatrist. That being said, I am still amazed that a person would voluntarily submit to major surgery only to be scorned by society.
Why shouldn’t they be scorned? What they’re doing to themselves is insane. No one is obligated to validate or affirm that decision in any way or participatein that delusion.
USCCB: “In an interview with the agency televised and published in Spanish Jan. 25, the pope had said that “being homosexual is not a crime. It is not a crime.” He defined as “unjust” laws that criminalize homosexuality or homosexual activity and urged church members, including bishops, to show “tenderness” as God does with each of his children.
A small victory, but – a victory.
Of such small victories are larger and larger victories made.
I don’t totally understand the complexity here, but if the doctor, who exercises his Hippocratic oath, would advise the “patient” to see a Psychiatrist. That being said, I am still amazed that a person would voluntarily submit to major surgery only to be scorned by society.
Why shouldn’t they be scorned? What they’re doing to themselves is insane. No one is obligated to validate or affirm that decision in any way or participatein that delusion.
I try to approach gays as Pope Francis does…
USCCB: “In an interview with the agency televised and published in Spanish Jan. 25, the pope had said that “being homosexual is not a crime. It is not a crime.” He defined as “unjust” laws that criminalize homosexuality or homosexual activity and urged church members, including bishops, to show “tenderness” as God does with each of his children.