The state of North Dakota joined several hospitals and a group of nuns to sue the Obama administration on Monday over a federal regulation they claim would require doctors to perform gender transition procedures on individuals, including children, despite the medical judgment of health care providers.
The mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services would also require nearly all private insurance companies and employers to cover gender transition procedures, according to the complaint filed in North Dakota federal district court. Medicare and Medicaid are both exempt from the new regulation.
"With a single stroke of the pen, HHS has created a massive new liability for thousands of health care professionals unless they cast aside their medical judgment and perform controversial and even harmful medical transition procedures," the lawsuit states.
HHS issued the mandate in May, redefining the word "sex" under Obamacare to include "an individual's internal sense of gender, which may be different from an individual's sex assigned at birth."
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a conservative nonprofit, estimated the regulation will cost health care providers and taxpayers nearly $1 billion while affecting up to 900,000 doctors.
"No doctor should be forced to perform a procedure that he or she believes will harm a child," Lori Windham, senior counsel of the Becket Fund, said in a statement. "Decisions on a child's medical treatment should be between families and their doctors, not dictated by politicians and government bureaucrats."
North Dakota was among ten states that sued the federal government in July over a directive that allowed transgender students to use the bathroom of their chosen gender.