Bishops Ban Gender Ops At US Catholic Hospitals

From The Washington Stand

America’s Catholic bishops have passed a measure formally barring Catholic hospitals from conducting all gender transition procedures.

Members of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) voted to approve updates to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.

They’re the formal set of moral guidelines governing the Catholic practice of health care, in accord with the moral teachings of the Catholic Church.

One of the updates included formally creating a policy forbidding Catholic hospitals and health care providers to conduct gender transition procedures.

“WE HAVE A DUTY TO PROTECT OUR HUMANITY”

“Health care in the United States is marked by extraordinary change,” said the revised guidelines.

“Not only is there continuing change in clinical practice due to technological advances, but the health care system in the United States is being challenged by both institutional and social factors as well.”

“Now, with American health care facing even more dramatic changes, we reaffirm the Church’s commitment to health care ministry and the distinctive Catholic identity of the Church’s institutional health care services.”

“Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” the bishops wrote, highlighting the connection between human sexuality and human dignity.

COMMITMENT TO MITIGATE SUFFERING OF THOSE WITH GENDER DYSPHORIA

“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore, but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” the guidelines continued.

“This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body).”

“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’”

“They must provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” the USCCB stipulated.

“Since the human person is a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care professionals and their patients have the duty and the right to preserve the integrity of the human body.”

“TECHNOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS ARE NOT MORALLY JUSTIFIED”

“What is widely in practice today, and what is of great concern, is the range of technological interventions advocated by many in our society as treatments for what is termed ‘gender dysphoria’ or ‘gender incongruence,’” the bishops noted.

“These technological interventions are not morally justified either as attempts to repair a defect in the body or as attempts to sacrifice a part of the body for the sake of the whole.”

“First, they do not repair a defect in the body: there is no disorder in the body that needs to be addressed; the bodily organs are normal and healthy.”

“Instead, rather than to repair some defect in the body or to sacrifice a part for the sake of the whole, these interventions are intended to transform the body, so as to make it take on as much as possible the form of the opposite sex, contrary to the natural form of the body.”

“They are attempts to alter the fundamental order and finality of the body and to replace it with something else.”

CATHOLIC PLEDGE TO CONTINUE TO SUPPORT TRANSGENDER PATIENTS

The Catholic Health Association lauded the new guidelines.

“Regarding the new directives for the care of transgender persons, these changes are consistent with Catholic health care practice that does not allow for medical interventions that alter sexual characteristics absent an underlying condition,” the organisation said.

“Catholic providers will continue to welcome those who seek medical care from us and identify as transgender.”

“We will continue to treat these individuals with dignity and respect, which is consistent with Catholic social teaching and our moral obligation to serve everyone, particularly those who are marginalised.”

PRAISE FOR BISHOPS’ BAN

Family Research Council’s Mary Szoch applauded the announcement. “I am especially grateful for USCCB’s decision to update the ethical and religious directives that govern Catholic hospitals to include a protection against hormonal or surgical transgender procedures,” she told The Washington Stand.

“While the Catholic Church has always stood firmly against transgender ideology and certainly against any sort of medical interventions that violate the dignity of the human person, it is very helpful to see this position enshrined in Catholic hospitals’ governing documents.”

“This USCCB decision provides a clear response to any questions that should arise — and hopefully, it will prevent any Catholic hospitals from participating in the evil lie that a person’s God-given sex is changeable.”

In January, President Trump signed an executive order to prohibit hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements from performing transgender operations or providing transgender drugs to anyone under the age of 19.

That forced multiple hospitals to cancel their child transgender programs.