(ACIPrensa/InfoCatlica)Jesse Hammons, a person who identifies as transgender, filed a lawsuit against the St. Joseph Medical Center located in Towson, in the state of Maryland, United States, in which he alleged that he had received discrimination based on sex after the hospital closed. refused to remove her uterus, a process she wanted to carry out as part of a gender transition.
The hysterectomy was scheduled for January 6, 2020, however, a few days before, the Catholic hospital announced that it would not carry out said medical procedure based on the Directives for Catholic Health Services (ERDs), promulgated by the Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States.
In the ERDs, the bishops established that the direct sterilization of men or women is not allowed in a Catholic health institution.
It was because of this that Jesse Hammons became seriously incensed, to the point of filing a lawsuit against the hospital. In this way, the judgment was carried out.
The hospital was supported by the National Catholic Center for Bioethics (NCBC), who argued that gender transition of any kind is inherently messy, and that such procedures are not suited to the true good of the human person, which is a union of body and soul created unalterably male or female.
They explained: Gender transition should never be performed, encouraged, or positively affirmed as a good in Catholic healthcare.
However, the Catholic hospital failed to win this lawsuit. Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, Deborah K. Chasanow, ruled in favor of Hammos and strongly criticized the ethics presented by NCBC, calling it discriminatory.
The judge considered in her ruling that the facts show that the decision to cancel Hammons’ hysterectomy under a policy that prohibits gender-affirming care was discrimination based on her sex.
This caused sadness and concern in the local Catholic community. Joseph Meaney, president of the NCBC, stressed that this ruling represents an enormous danger for Catholic hospitals in the United States, since these health centers will be coerced and legally attacked for not providing interventions to transsexuals.
The obligation to carry out transsexual interventions would mean, in fact, the destruction of Catholic healthcare. So it’s extremely serious, Meaney declared.