The law has been held up in court.
QUICK FACTS:
- Republican Arkansas Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor-elect Leslie Rutledge defended the state’s law banning transgender surgery on minors.
- The Arkansas politician made her comments while speaking to Fox News’s John Roberts, saying that allowing children to undergo life-changing treatments could keep them from the mental health care they need.
- The ‘Save Adolescents From Experimentation’ (SAFE) Act was passed by the state legislature but was later held up in court due to a suit by the American Civil Liberties Union.
RUTLEDGE’S COMMENTS:
- “We’re only wanting to protect the children in the state of Arkansas, again, from making a life-altering, permanent decision such as changing their gender. This is a law that we passed in order to protect children, this is to protect minors,” Rutledge said
- “We want these children to have access to mental healthcare. What we don’t want are for adults to allow those children to make a life-altering, permanent decision,” Rutledge added.
BACKGROUND:
- Florida’s medical boards have banned gender transition surgery and medications for minors, as American Faith recently reported.
- Children and teens will be unable to receive puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and gender transition surgeries under a new ban from Florida’s Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine.
- An exemption will be made for patients currently involved in an FDA Institutional Review Board program clinical trial.
