Mary Beth Waddell, who serves as the Senior Legislative Assistant for Family Research Council, released the following statement:

"The Department of Health and Human Services has corrected a dangerous Obamacare rule that distorted key portions of the legislation to the detriment of both medical professionals and patients.

"Under the old Obama rule, medical professionals could have been forced to facilitate gender reassignment surgeries and abortions -- even if they believed this was a violation of their conscience or believed it harmful to the patient. Fortunately, soon after it was finalized, the courts blocked the far-reaching rule that was clearly unconstitutional.

"Gender transition procedures are not fully embraced within the medical community because of their severe negative, psychological, and physical impacts. These negative impacts have only become more apparent in the last four years since the Obama rule was adopted. The Obama rule failed to recognize the many unintended consequences to patients -- particularly those identifying as transgender. For example, men and women often get different doses of medications and even different ones altogether. Men and women sometimes exhibit different symptoms for the same disease. Treating a person differently based on their self-professed gender and not their biological make-up can be not only harmful, but deadly.

"The rule finalized today helps protect health care providers from being forced to participate in and perform services that substantially violate their consciences and help protect their patients. Family Research Council fully supports these revisions to ensure Obamacare isn't used as a vehicle to advance transgender or abortion politics," concluded Waddell.

SOURCE Family Research Council