ST LOUIS, MO – The state of Arkansas can now enforce a law that has been on their books for years with regard to prohibiting the likes of what progressives have dubbed transgender-affirming surgeries on minors after an appeals court in Missouri found the legislation, as written, legal to enforce.
On August 12th, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit delivered an 8-2 decision in favor of Arkansas’ Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act, which was a law passed back in 2021 prohibiting specific medical interventions on minors such as cosmetic mastectomies on girls, genital mutilation, and the prescription of cross-sex hormones or hormone blockers in relation to addressing gender dysphoria.
According to the language contained within the SAFE act, the state of Arkansas finds there to be a “compelling government interest in protecting the health and safety of its citizens, especially vulnerable children.”
Furthermore, the Arkansas law also makes note of the fact that “of the small percentage of children who are gender nonconforming or experience distress at identifying with their biological sex, studies consistently demonstrate that the majority come to identify with their biological sex in adolescence or adulthood, thereby rendering most physiological interventions unnecessary.”
In an unsurprising turn following the enactment of the legislation back in 2021, a small group of parents to self-identified transgender youths and some medical professionals filed suit against the state of Arkansas, claiming the law violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
A lower court’s ruling in 2023 sided with the plaintiffs in the suit, but the 8th Circuit found the lower court’s rationale flawed when overturning the decision earlier in August, with Judge Duane Benton finding there to be no “history and tradition” within the United States that allowed parents and medical professionals to offer medical interventions deemed unfit for children.
“The question is whether this Nation’s history and tradition, as well as its historical understanding of ordered liberty, support the right of a parent to obtain for his or her child a medical treatment that, although the child desires it and a doctor approves, the state legislature deems inappropriate for minors. This court finds no such right in this Nation’s history and tradition,” Judge Benton wrote for the majority.
The ACLU, which its roots originated in protecting free speech and labor unions and has since morphed into an advocacy group endorsing moral fluidity, predictably called the 8th Circuit’s decision “unjust” and “dangerous,” further claiming that prohibiting minors from obtaining invasive genital mutilation surgeries as being tantamount to something “that harms children.”
Meanwhile, Arkansas officials are celebrating the court’s ruling, with Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin saying of the court victory, “I applaud the court’s decision and am pleased that children in Arkansas will be protected from experimental procedures.”
State Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders also chimed in on the matter via a social media post reading, “This is a win for common sense - and for our kids. Arkansas’ first-in-the nation law to protect kids from life-altering gender experiments is back in effect!”
On August 12th, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit delivered an 8-2 decision in favor of Arkansas’ Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act, which was a law passed back in 2021 prohibiting specific medical interventions on minors such as cosmetic mastectomies on girls, genital mutilation, and the prescription of cross-sex hormones or hormone blockers in relation to addressing gender dysphoria.
According to the language contained within the SAFE act, the state of Arkansas finds there to be a “compelling government interest in protecting the health and safety of its citizens, especially vulnerable children.”
Furthermore, the Arkansas law also makes note of the fact that “of the small percentage of children who are gender nonconforming or experience distress at identifying with their biological sex, studies consistently demonstrate that the majority come to identify with their biological sex in adolescence or adulthood, thereby rendering most physiological interventions unnecessary.”
In an unsurprising turn following the enactment of the legislation back in 2021, a small group of parents to self-identified transgender youths and some medical professionals filed suit against the state of Arkansas, claiming the law violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
A lower court’s ruling in 2023 sided with the plaintiffs in the suit, but the 8th Circuit found the lower court’s rationale flawed when overturning the decision earlier in August, with Judge Duane Benton finding there to be no “history and tradition” within the United States that allowed parents and medical professionals to offer medical interventions deemed unfit for children.
“The question is whether this Nation’s history and tradition, as well as its historical understanding of ordered liberty, support the right of a parent to obtain for his or her child a medical treatment that, although the child desires it and a doctor approves, the state legislature deems inappropriate for minors. This court finds no such right in this Nation’s history and tradition,” Judge Benton wrote for the majority.
The ACLU, which its roots originated in protecting free speech and labor unions and has since morphed into an advocacy group endorsing moral fluidity, predictably called the 8th Circuit’s decision “unjust” and “dangerous,” further claiming that prohibiting minors from obtaining invasive genital mutilation surgeries as being tantamount to something “that harms children.”
Meanwhile, Arkansas officials are celebrating the court’s ruling, with Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin saying of the court victory, “I applaud the court’s decision and am pleased that children in Arkansas will be protected from experimental procedures.”
State Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders also chimed in on the matter via a social media post reading, “This is a win for common sense - and for our kids. Arkansas’ first-in-the nation law to protect kids from life-altering gender experiments is back in effect!”
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