Catholics for Choice Condemns Catholic Healthcare Restrictions, Affirms Dignity of Trans People
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, November 13, 2025
Contact: Lilian Medina Romero
Phone: (703) 688-2410
Email: lromero@catholicsforchoice.org
Catholics for Choice Condemns Catholic Healthcare Restrictions, Affirms Dignity of Trans People
WASHINGTON — Catholics for Choice, which serves the pro-choice Catholic majority, released the following statement from Kate Hoeting, MTS, Senior Advisor, responding to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ changes to the restrictions that govern more than 600 hospitals and 1,600 healthcare facilities that belong to Catholic healthcare networks:
“During the USCCB’s Fall Plenary this week, the bishops voted overwhelmingly to approve the seventh edition of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. The edited text includes expanded directives that ban gender-affirming care, a life-saving medical intervention essential to caring for the whole person. The bishops doubled down on this anti-trans bigotry by electing Archbishop Paul Coakley of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City to serve as USCCB president. In 2023, Coakley published a pastoral letter that referred to the ‘transgender movement’ as an ‘evil infecting our world.’
The discrimination didn’t stop there: The amended Catholic healthcare directives broaden the definition of abortion ‘by whatever means it is carried out… whether chosen for its own sake or for a further end.’ We know from two recent cases in California that these religiously based restrictions keep healthcare providers from administering emergency care to pregnant people. The amended directives also impose more explicit restrictions on end-of-life care, including Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED). According to a new footnote to the directives, they explicitly govern ‘hospitals, clinics, outpatient facilities, urgent care centers, hospices, nursing homes, and parishes.’ Further tying providers’ hands, the new directives include an explicit ban on referrals to other healthcare professionals who could provide much-needed care.
These transphobic, misogynistic, and ableist restrictions make one thing clear: The bishops are out of touch with the needs of everyday people. The restrictions extend beyond just Catholics, impacting the 1 in 6 acute care hospital beds in the U.S. subject to Catholic healthcare restrictions. The bishops are once again imposing their unpopular religious beliefs on patients regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. During this Transgender Awareness Week, observed November 13 to November 19, Catholics for Choice honors the dignity of LGBTQIA+ people by wholeheartedly supporting gender-affirming care. We need doctors, not doctrine, in our healthcare institutions.”
To learn more about the impact of Catholic healthcare restrictions, visit CFC’s resource The Doctrine Will See You Now.
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Catholics for Choice — which serves the pro-choice Catholic majority — encounters, educates, and emboldens people of faith who support reproductive freedom.
