Republican lawmakers in Michigan introduced a bill that would classify allowing a minor to undergo an irreversible, “gender-affirming” sex change operation as first-degree child abuse.
The legislation, House Bill 6454, stated that “a person is guilty of child abuse in the first degree” if a person “knowingly or intentionally consents to, obtains, or assists with a gender transition procedure for a child.”
“Child abuse in the first degree is a felony punishable by imprisonment for life or any term of years,” the bill continued.
State Rep. Beau LaFave, who co-sponsored the bill, told The Hill that people are “abusing” transgender children.
“The idea that we would be making potentially life-altering changes to 11-, 12-, 13-, 14, 15-year-old kids when it is illegal for them to have sex is insane,” LeFave said.
“I mean, they’re not responsible enough to smoke a cigarette until they’re 21,” he added.
If the bill were to become law, Michigan would join Arizona and Alabama, which have both passed laws that ban certain kinds of “gender-affirming” care for minors. “Gender-affirming” care includes hormone therapy treatments, puberty blockers and sex reassignment surgery.
This month, Townhall covered how woke medical groups sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to launch investigations into critics of hospitals that are performing “gender-affirming” surgeries on minors.
“From Boston to Akron to Nashville to Seattle, children's hospitals, academic health systems, and physicians are being targeted and threatened for providing evidence-based health care,” the letter said. “These attacks have not only made it difficult and dangerous for institutions and practices to provide this care, they have also disrupted many other services to families seeking care.”
"The attacks are rooted in an intentional campaign of disinformation, where a few high-profile users on social media share false and misleading information targeting individual physicians and hospitals, resulting in a rapid escalation of threats, harassment, and disruption of care across multiple jurisdictions. Our organizations have called on technology companies to do more to prevent this practice on digital platforms, and we now urge your office to take swift action to investigate and prosecute all organizations, individuals, and entities responsible," it continued.
In response, 13 GOP state attorneys general, led by Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti, sent a letter to Garland warning him against launching such investigations.
In a statement, Skrmetti told Townhall that “now is a time for more speech, not less. Each side must have the opportunity to marshal evidence, make its case, and attempt to persuade the American people of the rightness of its position… Silencing critics of current gender dysphoria treatment practices for minors will not make children any safer or healthier.”
“With Europe pulling back out of concern that these procedures hurt kids, at the very least, Americans deserve an open and honest debate,” he added.
The letters came after it was revealed that several children’s hospitals, including Vanderbilt University Medical Center, were providing “gender-affirming” surgeries on children.
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