South Dakota is the latest state to pass legislation banning harmful and experimental puberty blockers and mutilating surgeries for minors.
Last week, legislators overwhelmingly passed the "Help, Not Harm" bill (House Bill 1080) by a vote of 30-4, and Governor Kristi Noem signed it into law. According to Liberty Counsel, the Christian legal ministry that helped construct the legislation, South Dakota is the seventh state to no longer allow doctors in the state to chemically castrate a child or surgically mutilate a minor's body because of a mental issue.
"So many people are motivated," says Dr. Michelle Cretella of Advocates Protecting Children. "They recognize that this is mutilating and sterilizing children. The political differences don't matter. They want to do what they can do. If they can't do it openly, they will collaborate behind the scenes privately to push for legislation like this."
Though violators of the law could potentially lose their medical licenses, Dr. Cretella says some within the medical community may still find ways to get around the law. The problem is the major medical organizations are dominated by radical leftists.
"So, even in conservative states, if doctors violate that law and they're brought before the licensing board, it's not very likely that they will lose their license," she notes. "But it is very likely that they will be sued down the line."
In Kentucky, State Representative Jennifer Decker (R) has introduced the "Do No Harm Act" (HR 1378), a similar bill that will prevent minors in her state from transgender hormone treatments and mutilation surgeries.
David Walls of The Family Foundation tells AFN Planned Parenthood, which can no longer legally abort preborn babies in The Bluegrass State, is advertising the treatments.
"We have every reason to believe that this is happening, or at least being referred or encouraged, here in the Commonwealth of Kentucky," Walls relays. "Now is the time to stop. We do not want one child in Kentucky to fall prey to these harmful, harmful interventions."
He submits that no child should ever be told they were born in the wrong body or that gender dysphoria is something that mutilation can correct.
"We know that each and every child is created in the image of God as male and female, and the loving, affirming thing to do is if you've got a child that's struggling with their identity in this context … to lovingly affirm them in the truth of who God created them to be," the family advocate states.
The legislation, if approved and signed into law, would require children to wait until they are at least 18 years old before they can go forward with so-called "affirming" treatments.
Most children who struggle with gender dysphoria align their thinking with their born gender in their teen years.
