Supreme Court Denies Appeal Of Catholic Hospital With Justices Kavanaugh, Barrett Siding With Liberals

The surgery was part of the patient’s transition from female to male, Reuters reported.

The justices turned away an appeal by Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a Sacramento-area hospital owned by Dignity Health, and let stand a lower court ruling that revived Evan Minton’s lawsuit accusing it of intentionally discriminating against him in violation of California law because he is transgender.

Advertisement

The justices on Monday also bolstered a Roman Catholic-led challenge to a New York state requirement that health insurance policies provided by employers cover abortion services. The justices told a lower court to reconsider its decision to throw out a bid by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany and other plaintiffs to widen an existing religious exemption to a 2017 state regulation that requires health insurance policies to cover “medically necessary” abortions.

It was, again, Supreme Court conservative Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barret, and Chief Justice John Roberts who sided with the liberals.

Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch said that they would have heard the case.

The California hospital said that it does not discriminate against transgender patients but it does not allow its facility to be used for certain procedures that contradict the Catholic faith, like abortions, sterilization, and euthanasia.

The hospital had initially scheduled the procedure prior to discovering the reason for the hysterectomy in 2016 but did allow the procedure to be done in another hospital in its network.

Minton sued in state court, saying the hospital’s decision was a violation of the state’s civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

A trial judge initially ruled against the patient but in 2019 a California appeals court ruled against the hospital.

“This case poses a profound threat to faith-based health care institutions’ ability to advance their healing ministries consistent with the teachings of their faith,” the facility said to the Justices in a court filing.

The decision by the Supreme Court is not the first time Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett disappointed conservatives.

Last month the two-sided with liberals in a case that kept Maryland’s vaccine mandate intact.

The mandate took effect on Friday and the court rejected the emergency appeal of the workers, with Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett siding with the defendants, Fox News reported.

Now the workers at the state’s hospitals and nursing homes are at risk of becoming unemployed if they do not get the vaccine and there are no religious exemptions.

Three conservative justices, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, dissented from the majority 6 – 3 decision, saying that they would have sided with the healthcare workers.

“This case presents an important constitutional question, a serious error, and an irreparable injury,” Justice Gorsuch said. “Where many other States have adopted religious exemptions, Maine has charted a different course. There, healthcare workers who have served on the front line of a pandemic for the last 18 months are now being fired and their practices shuttered. All for adhering to their constitutionally protected religious beliefs.”

“Their plight is worthy of our attention,” he said. “I would grant relief.”

Advertisement

In a statement agreeing with the court’s unwillingness to involve itself in the matter, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, said the court has “discretionary judgment” on whether to take emergency appeals like this and claimed the court was being asked to “grant extraordinary relief.”

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills ordered Maine’s vaccine requirement. A federal judge in Maine declined to stop the mandate, concluding that a lawsuit was unlikely to succeed. The Oct. 13 decision prompted a flurry of appeals that landed, for a second time, in the Supreme Court.

The Liberty Counsel, which filed the lawsuit, claimed to be representing more than 2,000 health care workers who don’t want to be forcibly vaccinated.