FORT WORTH, Texas — Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union and American Civil Liberties Union of Texas today filed a motion to intervene in a case challenging a section of the Affordable Care Act that prohibits health care providers from discriminating based on race, national origin, sex, age or disability. The lawsuit, Franciscan Alliance v. Burwell, was filed by a group of states and religiously affiliated health care organizations against the federal government.
The motion asks the court to permit the ACLU of Texas and the River City Gender Alliance to intervene on behalf of their members because the lawsuit seeks to undermine critical anti-discrimination measures and to allow religion to be used to deny their members medical care.
“Religion should never be used as a weapon to deny any Texan the care she needs,” said Rebecca L. Robertson, legal and policy director of the ACLU of Texas. “Women seeking reproductive care and transgender Texans deserve access to health care on the same basis as everyone else, and it’s appalling that the state of Texas would join this suit in an attempt to deny it to them.”
The lawsuit requests a court order permitting discrimination against women and transgender people seeking medical care. The plaintiff states and organizations spend millions in taxpayer dollars, employ thousands of health care workers and operate a wide network of hospitals and health care facilities. Sanctioning their request to screen patients based on religious doctrine would allow hospitals and health care centers to turn away transgender patients seeking medically necessary gender-confirming care or women seeking reproductive health care.
“This lawsuit aims to undermine critical protections against discrimination in health care. No one — whether they’re male or female, transgender or not — should fear being turned away at the hospital door because of who they are,” said Louise Melling, deputy legal director at the ACLU. “Religious liberty does not mean the right to discriminate or harm others.”
In addition to the Franciscan Alliance, the other plaintiffs in the case are the Christian Medical & Dental Associations and the states of Texas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kentucky (through their governor) and Kansas.
