AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday was granted a nationwide preliminary injunction that blocks the Obama administration's new federal health rules forcing doctors to act contrary to their medical judgment or religious beliefs.
The U.S. Department of Health in July implemented a rule under the Affordable Care Act that interpreted the definition of sex as it pertains to a person's gender as a state of mind, not a biological fact. However, when Congress enacted the law, it initially used the term sex as a biological category.
Recommended Videos
Paxton said that even though Obama lacks the authority to rewrite the law, his administration is attempting to redefine it so that the term sex means one's "internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.
Paxton said not only does it require taxpayers to fund all treatments designed to transition people to a different sex, but it also forces health care workers to provide controversial services.
“This striking example of federal overreach under Obamacare would force many doctors, hospitals and other health care providers in Texas to participate in sex-reassignment surgeries and treatments, even if it violates their best medical judgment or their religious beliefs,” Paxton said. “I will always fight to protect the constitutional rights of Texans.”
Under the new rule, Paxton said, a physician who believes certain treatments are not in the best interest of their patient, or cannot perform a surgery due to religious or conscientious reasons, may be in violation of federal law.
The law, which had been scheduled to go into effect Sunday, would force the Employees Retirement System of Texas to amend its insurance coverage for all 500,000 participants to provide for gender reassignment and abortion.