This story has been corrected to correct the reference to Justice Clarence Thomas at paragraph 4.

Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to consider a request by a Catholic California hospital to avoid a lawsuit for refusing to allow its facility to be used to do a hysterectomy of a transgender person who requested the procedure to help with gender transition.

Appeal by Mercy San Juan Medical Center (a Sacramento-area hospital that Dignity Health owns) was denied by the justices. A lower court ruling which revived Evan Minton’s suit accusing it in California of discriminating against him, violating California law, was also rejected by the justices.

Monday’s court hearing was also the support of a Roman Catholic-led challenge against a New York state law that requires employers to provide health insurance coverage for abortion services. A lower court was asked by the justices to reconsider its 2017 decision that disqualified a request from the Roman Catholic Diocese in Albany and other plaintiffs for an extension of a religious exemption to state regulations that require health insurance policies to include coverage for “medically required” abortions.

Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas (Conservative Justice Samuel Alito) and Neil Gorsuch stated they would have taken both cases up for argument.

California hospital claimed it doesn’t discriminate against transgender people, but it won’t allow certain procedures to be performed in its facility, including sterilization, abortion and euthanasia. This is contrary to Catholic teachings.

According to the lawsuit, the hospital had originally scheduled Minton’s 2016 hysterectomy (suction of the uterus) but cancelled it when it learned that Minton requested it. Minton was treated at the hospital by Minton’s surgeon, who performed it in a separate facility.

Minton brought suit against the state to accuse the hospital of discrimination based on race or religion.

Minton lost the trial court case. In 2019, a California appels court reopened the case. The hospital claimed that forcing them to do procedures against their religious beliefs would be in violation of its First Amendment right to free religion.

In a court filing, the hospital said that “this case presents a serious threat to faith based health care institutions” and warned the justices.

Minton claimed that the hysterectomy is medically required to treat gender dysphoria. The American Psychiatric Association defined it as “clinically serious distress” in which there was a conflict of a person’s gender identity with the sex they were given at birth. Minton explained to the justices that the hospital performs routine hysterectomies for non-transgender people in order to manage other conditions, including chronic pelvic discomfort or uterine fibroids.