Republican Gov. Mark Gordon (R-WYo.) signed a series of bills banning gender reassignment surgery on minors. However, he rejected a bill that would have elevated significant barriers to abortion,
On Friday, Gordon signed the “Children gender change prohibition," legislation into law, which bans physicians from performing gender-reassignment procedures on children and administering such medications that would alter their body chemistry.
"I signed SF99 because I support the protections this bill includes for children, however, it is my belief that the government is straying into the personal affairs of families," Gordon said in a statement. "Our legislature needs to sort out its intentions with regard to parental rights. While it inserts governmental prerogative in some places, it affirms parental rights in others."
The law will prohibit any “surgery that sterilizes the child, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty and vaginoplasty."
It will also ban related prescription drugs “that induce transient or permanent infertility," or are considered a “puberty suppression or blocking prescription drugs to stop or delay normal puberty."
However, Gordon vetoed the “Regulation of abortions” bill, which would have placed further restrictions on abortions in the state.
The legislation would have "properly regulated surgical abortion clinics in Wyoming," however, the governor noted that the "amendments to the bill complicated its purpose, making it vulnerable to legal challenges."
“It is my opinion that HB148, as amended, had the potential to further delay the resolution of this critical issue for the unborn," Gordon said in the statement. "The potential of starting over on a new course of legal arguments would in my mind be derelict, and would have only sacrificed additional unborn lives in Wyoming."
The bill would have classified abortion clinics as a “ambulatory surgical center.”