Just one week after the legislation went into effect, a federal court in Alabama suspended a new Alabama law that made it a crime for doctors to provide puberty blockers and hormone therapies to adolescents.
In the midst of a legal challenge to the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, U.S. District Judge Liles Burke granted a preliminary injunction on Friday. The bill was the first of its type, and state Attorney General Steve Marshall indicated that he would appeal the decision.
Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement Saturday morning calling the judgment a “temporary legal obstacle.”
“Despite this temporary legal hurdle, we will continue to battle to safeguard Alabama’s children from these radical, untested, life-altering medications,” Ivey stated. “It is especially important now when they are at their most vulnerable. Even in the face of today’s societal pressures and modern culture, we will continue to uphold our duty to ensure that children are free to grow into the adults God intended them to be.”
The law made providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or transition surgery to anybody under the age of 19 a felony punishable by up to ten years in jail. The provision of the statute that criminalizes transition surgery will continue in force.
Four families with transgender children have filed a lawsuit alleging that the law is discriminatory, violates equal protection and free expression rights, and intrudes on family medical decisions. The complaint was joined by the Department of Justice. Alabama has not given any solid evidence to indicate that the drugs are “experimental,” according to the Trump-appointed judge.
“The undisputed record evidence is that at least twenty-two major medical societies in the United States recommend transitioning drugs as well-established, evidence-based therapies for gender dysphoria in kids,” he stated.
He also highlighted evidence from a mother who expressed concern that her kid might attempt suicide if access to transitioning drugs was denied. The ruling notes that “enjoining the Act maintains and confirms the ‘enduring American tradition’ that parents — not states or federal courts — play the essential role in nurturing and caring for their children.”
The bill was one of many in Republican-led states aimed at transgender youngsters. The Alabama measure, on the other hand, was the first to make it a crime for physicians to give the drugs.
Last year, a court in Arkansas stopped the implementation of a similar statute.
Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson vetoed legislation this spring forbidding Arkansas doctors from administering gender-affirming hormone therapy, puberty blockers, or surgery to anybody under the age of 18, but the state legislature reversed the veto. A federal court stopped the law in July.
