Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton amended a lawsuit which was previously filed against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regarding new guidance that empowers the federal government to withhold federal funding from state entities that do not adhere to their misinterpretation of the Affordable Care Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, the guidance states that doctors, medical providers, and other related medical staff who report “sex change” procedures and the administration of puberty blockers to minors as “child abuse” may violate federal law—even though state law says that such procedures can, in fact, constitute “child abuse.”
This recent guidance comes in addition to Biden’s June 15, 2021 guidance that also attacked employers, forcing them to “allow exceptions from their generally applicable workplace policies on usage of bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers (collectively, ‘bathrooms’), dress codes, and pronoun usage, based on the subjective gender identities of their employees.” All of the Biden Administration’s positions on these matters arise from the misinterpretation, misapplication, and misstatement of statutory and case law.
“The federal government does not have the authority to govern the medical profession and set family policies, including what may constitute child abuse in state family law courts,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said. “It is time for the Biden Administration to quit forcing their political agenda. This is about the safety of children. It is time to put their well-being first.”