Rep. Ehrhart Looks to Block Gender Reassignment for Children
From a press release:
State Representative Ginny Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs) today announced that she will introduce the Vulnerable Child Protection Act during the 2020 legislative session. This legislation would make it a felony to perform radical surgery on, or administer drugs to, a minor child for the purpose of attempting to change a minor’s gender.
“This form of child abuse is becoming a serious problem in Georgia and is evolving into a national crisis,” said Rep. Ehrhart. “We are talking about children who have not reached the legal age of consent yet are being subjected to life-altering, irreversible surgeries and drug treatments that render them sterile and permanently disfigured. The psychological damage this does to innocent children must come to an end. This legislation makes such abusive actions criminal.”
The Vulnerable Child Protection Act would make it a felony to perform certain medical procedures that attempt to change a minor’s gender, including sterilization, mastectomy, vasectomy, castration and other forms of genital mutilation. The legislation would also prohibit the administration of medications to minors that may cause infertility, including puberty-blocking drugs to stop or delay normal puberty and cross-sex hormone therapy (administering testosterone to female children and estrogen to male children). The removal of otherwise healthy or non-diseased body parts from minors would also be prohibited.
“The Vulnerable Child Protection Act is not an attempt to infringe on the rights of adults to make lifestyle choices for themselves,” added Rep. Ehrhart. “This is about children who are being abused by adults. The sterilization and castration of children has no place in a civilized society.”
“This bill is of the utmost importance, because it will put a stop to the process of trying to convert a child’s physical appearance to that of the opposite sex, resulting in irreversible, medically harmful changes,” said Dr. Van Meter, an Atlanta-based pediatric endocrinologist. “There is no valid scientific long-term evidence that this is either safe or effective, while there is ample evidence that it is harmful. Children should be protected from medical experimentation based on wishful social theory. These children are suffering from a psychological condition without biologic basis. Using the bludgeon of threatened suicide as justification is first of all cruel, and secondly, not supported by valid published studies.”
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lawtonsack
Lawton is a graduate of Georgia Southern University (the GSU) with a degree in Information Technology. He has held numerous positions within the Georgia Republican Party throughout the years.
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Seems like great legislation though perhaps the above is in the vein of the presentation of a constitutional amendment to voters. On one side, I have no doubt there are things done that I disagree with and think wrong. On the other there are hermaphrodites and everything in between them and the large majority of most people.
Full disclosure: I do not know anything about this issue; it’s the 1st time I heard of it. But I’m glad others are more informed than me.
But one thing I don’t get, from the doctor’s quote: that using the bludgeon of threatened suicide as justification is first of all cruel…
Is it that the kids are saying that the kids are threatening suicide if they don’t get the reassignment surgery, and the parents are then acceding to the wishes of the child as far as authorizing the surgery?
Because if that’s the case, that doesn’t seem like cruelty at all. The parental decision-making can of course be second-guessed by every other parent who may or may not know the realities of the child, but cruelty that does not appear to be. That appears to be a parent trying to help a child through a profound emotional disorder, whether the response is the best one or not.
The larger concern I have is: If there is such concern over the problems as are being embodied in these procedures, where is the policy support for children’s mental health? I do seem to remember some recent initiative or other, but this very day the Morning Reads linked to an article stating evidence that ‘states that have not expanded Medicaid, such as Georgia, saw larger increases in their rates of uninsured children’.
And lest we forget, children could get mental health care under Medicaid.
There are also at least a half dozen other available ways that GA could increase support for mental health care for children, if the state chooses to so care and prioritize. Why not work on the alleged cause of the problem at least at the same time as criminalizing one specific response to the problem (or condition/reality)?
We can’t afford it. There’s a vote on an another state income tax cut already scheduled, state revenues aren’t what Kemp said they’d be in the Trump boom times so there are already budget cuts to be made, and there’s a new personhood income tax exemption (credit?) to fund should the Supremes overturn Roe v. Wade.