It was a narrow escape, but the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday gave LGBT legal activists a significant sigh of relief in a case involving transgender access to equality in health care. The court also appeared to take some heed of the fact that a Texas abortion ban under scrutiny could have significant implications for same-sex marriage. The court announced November 1 that it would not take up an appeal seeking to challenge a lower court decision that favored a transgender patient. The lower court had allowed to proceed a lawsuit the patient had filed against a Catholic-run hospital that refused to perform a hysterectomy as part of the patient’s transition from female to male. The Supreme Court’s vote was close: Three justices indicated they would have accepted the Catholic hospital’s appeal. It takes only four justices to grant an appeal. The dissenting justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—did not explain their dissent, as they sometimes do. The decision under challenge, Dignity Health v. Minton, came from a California appeals court in San Francisco on an important, but preliminary, legal matter. After the state supreme court refused review on the preliminary matter, the hospital chain, along with such […]
News from around the world. Curated by Mark McDowell. Posts do not constitute agreement or endorsement.