Press Release  AG Campbell Defends Medical Access and Privacy, Abortion Rights and Safeguards for Vulnerable Youth in Court Briefs

BOSTON — Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has joined multistate coalitions of Attorneys General in amicus briefs defending gender-affirming health care, the rights of LGBTQIA+ youth, emergency abortion access and medical privacy.

“In Massachusetts, our laws lead the way by providing strong privacy and civil rights protections for all our residents, including for LGBTQIA+ youth and people seeking abortion care,” said AG Campbell. “I’m proud to join coalitions of my fellow state attorneys general to call for the same protections and guarantees for all Americans.”

Last week, AG Campbell worked with a coalition of state attorneys general to file an amicus brief in Dekker v. Weida in support of transgender rights and equal access to healthcare. The amicus brief, filed before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, supports a challenge to Florida’s newly adopted rule prohibiting Medicaid coverage of treatment for gender dysphoria. The AG’s Office also joined a brief supporting transgender-inclusive school athletic policies in Soule v. Connecticut Ass’n of Schools. The amicus brief describes how transgender and non-binary youth suffer pervasive harms from discrimination, and explains how laws that protect against that discrimination, including in sports, confer measurable, long-term benefits on young people.

Also last week, AG Campbell signed onto a brief in support of Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy” for minors. AG Campbell and her colleagues describe in the amicus brief the scientific evidence and resounding professional consensus condemning conversion therapy as harmful to children and beneath the standard of care. Massachusetts is one of 27 states with existing bans on conversion therapy.

In another case, AG Campbell cosigned an amicus brief backing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in a Fifth Circuit appeal defending the federal Title X family planning program’s confidentiality protections for minors. The brief urges the Fifth Circuit to reverse the district court’s judgment declaring unconstitutional Title X’s confidentiality protections, describing the importance of these longstanding confidentiality protections to ensuring minor patients receive needed care and how these protections have long been upheld against similar parental-rights challenges.

In an amicus brief filed Tuesday, AG Campbell joined a coalition supporting the Biden Administration’s defense of its Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) guidance, which restates hospitals’ obligations under EMTALA to perform abortions when necessary in emergency situations.  In July 2022, Texas filed a lawsuit challenging the EMTALA guidance, and in August 2022, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas barred the guidance from being applied in Texas. The coalition of states supporting the Biden Administration wrote in their amicus brief that the district court ruling, if allowed to stand, would endanger patients in Texas and also have serious repercussions on the health systems of other states.

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