A number of Catholic hospitals and healthcare providers will not have their contracts renewed with the University of California at the end of 2023.
The Board of Regents for the university voted to cut ties with these organizations due to their “discriminatory care,” meaning their policies that prohibit abortions, hysterectomies, and providing contraceptives. Furthermore, these Catholic providers do not provide transgender surgery, or transitioning drugs such as puberty blockers and cross sex hormones. The Board of Regents determined that these restrictions are not “culturally appropriate.”
Although the Board reached its vote independently, state Senator Scott Weiner introduced legislation, SB 379, earlier this year that, if passed, will require the University of California by law to not enter into contracts with organizations that have “policy-based restrictions.” That bill stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee, but could come back next year.
Regardless of whether that happens, the Board of Regents made it clear that their political ideologies trump quality of care.
The decision to cut ties with these Catholic providers will leave 35,000 patients without care – and there is no current plan to ensure these patients receive comparable care.
According to the radical leftists leading our public universities, virtue signaling is more important than preserving the medical care of tens of thousands of people.
The radical left’s invasion of culture with pro-abortion and pro-LGBT messaging is not new, but it has taken over even the medical community at an alarming rate.
Doctors are supposed to first and foremost “do no harm,” yet, increasingly, medical professionals are putting their personal politics before patient care. Indeed, groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics (supposedly “dedicated to the health of all children”) encourage “gender-exploration” in children instead of providing evidence-based care.
“Gender-expansive children are healthiest when they are in control of their gender expression,” the AAP advises, “whether that means the toys they play with or the name they ask to be called.”
The rush to slap the transgender label on young children simply because of the toys they play with is unhealthy and absurd. If that label leads to sterilizing treatments like puberty blockers cross-sex hormones, or sex reassignment surgery, the line of child abuse has been crossed.
Because the Catholic providers in California respect both the biological sex of the patient as well as the life of the unborn child, they will now lose major contracts with the University of California.
If it weren’t for the 35,000 patients now left without care, it might just be good riddance.
Beyond the loss of care for these patients, however, it is deeply troubling that radical leftist political orthodoxy is taking precedence in all walks of life. Orthodoxy trumps religious and moral values. Orthodoxy trumps making the best decisions for your child. Orthodoxy trumps providing care for scores of patients.
The University of California is committing evil in the name of tolerance and acceptance. The biblical views on gender/sex are under attack everywhere. That includes in the medical community where ironically Christian values benefit patients the most because they honor and protect their dignity and health at all stages of life.
The Board of Regent’s actions brings to remembrance a verse from Isaiah 5:20, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
