June 2017 Bar Bulletin
By Kelli Schmidt
On December 31, a national injunction was issued in Franciscan Alliance v. Burwell, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Wichita Falls Division.1 The injunction is critically important because it undermined protections against discrimination in health care by holding that corporations’ and health care providers’ rights to religious freedom trump the rights of women and transgender individuals to nondiscrimination in health care.
The injunction was a victory for the religious right and raised alarm for women’s rights groups; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy and legal (LGBT) organizations; and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)2 because it misrepresented a regulation...