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Two small steps back from the edge...
Biden admin. can't make doctors perform gender reassignment
surgeries, abortions: appeals court
By Michael Gryboski,
Mainline Church Editor Twitter
Christian Post
A federal appeals court has blocked the implementation of a Department of Health and Human Services rule requiring medical facilities to provide gender transition surgeries and abortions and health insurers to cover them, even if they hold religious objections to either procedure.
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit released a unanimous decision last Friday in the case of Franciscan Alliance, Inc. et al. v. Xavier Becerra, upholding a lower court’s permanent injunction against the HHS mandate.
In March, HHS issued guidance declaring that “federally-funded covered entities restricting an individual’s ability to receive medically necessary care, including gender-affirming care, from their health care provider solely on the basis of their sex assigned at birth or gender identity likely violates Section 1557” of the Affordable Care Act. The appeals court panel agreed that the plaintiffs, which included a network of faith-based healthcare providers, had valid concerns over being harmed by the HHS mandate.
Plaintiffs contended that the HHS mandate violated the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Circuit Judge Don Willett, appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, authored the panel opinion. He concluded that throughout the debate over the mandate, “it has become even clearer that Franciscan Alliance’s RFRA claim is not moot,” rejecting the argument made by HHS that the plaintiffs.
“Just months ago HHS issued the 2022 Notice, which warned covered entities like Franciscan Alliance that refusing to offer gender-reassignment surgeries violates Section 1557,” wrote Willett.
“HHS has also repeatedly refused to disavow enforcement against Franciscan Alliance. In its brief on appeal, HHS simply says it ‘has not to date evaluated’ whether it will enforce Section 1557 against Franciscan Alliance — in other words, it concedes that it may.”
The panel also dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim that HHS had violated the Administrative Procedure Act, specifically maintaining that it contradicted preexisting law and exceeded its authority.
Willett wrote that the appeals court considered the APA claim moot since the parts of the mandate that went against the Act had already been struck down in an earlier ruling.
Becket, the religious liberty law firm that is helping to represent the plaintiffs, celebrated the decision. Counsel Joseph Davis called it “a major victory for conscience rights and compassionate medical care in America.”
“Doctors cannot do their jobs and comply with the Hippocratic Oath if the government requires them to perform harmful, irreversible procedures against their conscience and medical expertise,” said Davis in a statement released last Friday.
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Pornhub booted off Instagram after complaints
from anti-sexual exploitation group
By Samantha Kamman,
Christian Post Reporter
A Pornhub logo is displayed at the company's booth at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on January 24, 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada. | Getty Images/Ethan Miller
A nonprofit that advocates against sexual exploitation praised Instagram’s reported decision to suspend Pornhub, citing the move as proof that the social media company acknowledges the severity of the accusations against the MindGeek-owned platform.
As the National Center on Sexual Exploitation reported on Saturday, the Meta-owned platform removed Pornhub's account followed by over 13 million with over 6,200 posts. While the account didn't share pornographic content, it promoted pornography and encouraged users to become pornography performers.
“Instagram was right to remove Pornhub from its platform for violating its community standards given the increasing reports of Pornhub hosting child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking, filmed rape, and non-consensual videos and images,” NCOSE CEO Dawn Hawkins said in a statement shared with The Chrisitan Post.
“Instagram served as a distribution partner with this criminal enterprise, helping to push millions to their website, including children. We are grateful that Instagram has heard the voices of sexual abuse survivors who have been personally harmed by Pornhub’s insatiable appetite for profit,” she continued.
The NCOSE CEO stated that Pornhub had a blue verification check despite encouraging children to pursue a career in the pornography industry and ongoing accusations of illegal activity.
“Instagram is courageously choosing to stop partnering with Pornhub and it is time for all corporate entities to follow its example,” Hawkins wrote.
NCOSE, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, works to expose the public health harms of pornography and expose systems that enable sexual abuse and exploitation.
In a November 2021 memo, NCOSE shared with Instagram its concerns about children's vulnerability to human trafficking and the presence of Pornhub on Instagram. While NCOSE acknowledged Pornhub’s page is not sexually graphic, its Instagram channel reportedly encouraged careers in the industry through videos like “Next Career Goal.”
The nonprofit partnered with similar organizations in November 2019 to run the #WakeUpInstagram campaign, calling on the social media platform to stop facilitating child sexual abuse and grooming.
Instagram did not immediately respond to CP’s request for comment.
Pornhub’s potential criminality and exploitative content garnered increased attention due to a December 2020 New York Times exposé on the subject. The article accused the platform of profiting from "child rapes" and other horrific "racist and misogynist content."
Visa and Mastercard responded to the allegations by announcing that same month that they would temporarily prevent their cards from being used on Pornhub.
In an April 2021 blog post, Mastercard outlined new rules for banks that process payments for pornography websites. The company required banks to ensure pornography websites verified the age and identity of individuals depicted online and whether the materials were posted with their consent.
VISA puts profit ahead of kids
In a July blog post, NOCSE announced that Visa had re-established its relationship with MindGeek, the company that owns Pornhub and other porn sites. The nonprofit stated that Visa "failed to follow the example of Mastercard in requiring that sites hosting sexually explicit material implement common-sense measures to prevent and remove illegal content."
A lawsuit was filed in July against MindGeek in the U.S. District Court Central District of California. The plaintiff, Serene Fleites, alleged that Pornhub hosted a sexually explicit video of her 13-year-old self in 2014. Fleites claimed that her boyfriend pressured her into making the video and posted it online without her consent.
MindGeek posted the video online, and it garnered over 400,000 views, profiting from the revenue it earned from advertisements in the video, the lawsuit alleged.
Visa was listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, and U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney denied Visa's motion to be dismissed from the litigation. The plaintiff argued that Visa knew MindGeek contained child pornography and had failed to take it down.
"When MindGeek decides to monetize child porn, and Visa decides to continue to allow its payment network to be used for that goal despite knowledge of MindGeek's monetization of child porn, it is entirely foreseeable that victims of child porn like plaintiff will suffer the harms that plaintiff alleges," Judge Carney wrote.
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