The Trump administration has announced that it will appeal a decision that struck down a rule protecting health care providers from discrimination if they refuse to provide medical services for religious or moral reasons.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that it would join an appeal of the court’s decision on Jan. 3.
The judge, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer, an Obama administration appointee, also found that the department had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when making the rule while relying on “factually untrue” reasons for its promulgation.
He also agreed with the plaintiff’s argument that HHS had acted outside its power by implementing a rule that would threaten federal funding to health care providers who do not comply.
“The ultimate penalty claimed by the Rule exceeds that authority because no law authorizes HHS to terminate all of a recipient’s HHS funding for a violation,” he wrote.
The rule was implemented as part of President Donald Trump’s vow to protect fundamental rights of conscience and religious liberty. In May 2017, he signed an executive order to protect religious liberty.
Following the rule’s announcement, 19 states and the District of Columbia, Planned Parenthood and one of its subsidiaries, and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association and Public Health Solutions brought separate cases against the Trump administration seeking to strike down the rule. The court combined the three cases in its judgment.
“Everyone is entitled to their religious beliefs, but religious beliefs do not include a license to discriminate, to deny essential care, or to cause harm to others. It is shameful that the government agency that is supposed to protect, not undermine, patient health is continuing to defend this illegal and dangerous rule,” Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, senior staff attorney with the Reproductive Freedom Project at the ACLU, said.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.