Missouri court upholds ban on medical mutilation for kids
A Missouri judge on Monday upheld a state ban on “gender-affirming care” for children, making Missouri the first state to secure such a victory in trial court.
Emily Noe brought the case on behalf of her minor child, hoping to overturn Missouri’s Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act. Noe argued that the law, which was passed last year and prohibits doctors from performing transgender procedures on children, violates the US Constitution.
These procedures include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change surgeries. They are referred to as “gender-affirming care” by gender activists, but many doctors refer to them as “medical mutilation” because of the irreversible damage they cause, including sterilization and castration.
No good evidence to support ‘gender-affirming care’
In his Monday ruling upholding the ban, Cole County Circuit Judge R. Craig Carter slammed medical mutilation interventions as “outside normal medicine.”
“The evidence from trial showed that the medical ethics of gender dysphoria treatment for children and adolescents are entirely unsettled,” he wrote, adding: “The gender dysphoria treatment prohibited by Missouri uses drugs and surgeries to either inhibit normal healthy human growth or surgically remove and replace healthy human organs. Such an approach to treatment is well outside normal medicine, and medical ethicists are unable to agree on the propriety thereof.”
Noe had brought experts to testify in support of medical mutilation procedures for gender dysphoria, but even they were forced to concede there is a “substantial medical dispute about the causes and treatments of gender dysphoria.”
“In fact, both the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization have concluded that there is a lack of good evidence supporting the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgeries,” the court said. “Indeed, as Plaintiffs’ side acknowledged during trial, a majority of U.S. states have now passed laws restricting these interventions in minors.”
Mental health is a poor justification
Gender activists justify their support for medical mutilation by claiming it improves the mental health of gender dysphoric children, though evidence shows a link between these procedures and suicide.
But even without that evidence, such rationalization could open the door to other abusive behaviors. Judge Carter explained that according to the plaintiff’s logic, “any person – including a minor – would be able to do anything from meth, to ecstasy, to abortion as long as a single medical professional was willing to recommend it.”
Almost all children outgrow gender dysphoria
Not only does medical mutilation not cure gender dysphoria, but gender dysphoria in most cases does not need to be cured. The judge noted that at least 85% of children with gender dysphoria grow out of it, with some estimates saying the number is as high as 98%.
‘A resounding victory for our children’
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey celebrated the court’s ruling, saying: “The Court has left Missouri’s law banning child mutilation in place, a resounding victory for our children. We are the first state in the nation to successfully defend such a law at the trial court level. I’m extremely proud of the thousands of hours my office put in to shine a light on the lack of evidence supporting these irreversible procedures. We will never stop fighting to ensure Missouri is the safest state in the nation for children.”
