The Republican governor of Arkansas has just vetoed a bill that would have prohibited transgender reassignment surgeries and other treatments to minors in the state, calling it government overreach:
THE HILL – Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) vetoed a bill on Monday that would have banned all gender reassignment surgeries and other treatments for transgender youth in the state, calling the bill an example of government overreach.
Hutchinson announced his veto at a news conference with reporters, calling the bill “well-intentioned, but off course,” and explaining that it put the state in a position to override the decisions of doctors and parents.
“I must veto House Bill 1570,” Hutchinson said. “I have signed the veto … today, and I have notified the sponsors as well as the leadership of the House and Senate as well.”
“If [the bill] becomes law we are creating new standards of legislative interference with physicians and parents as they deal with some of the most complex and sensitive matters dealing with young people,” he said.
While transgender youth in Arkansas are an “extreme minority,” the governor continued, “they deserve the guiding hand of their parents and of the health care professional that their family has chosen.”
Hutchinson went on to accuse lawmakers of trying to make the state “the definitive oracle of medical care” for children in the state, a position that the governor said the state should not assume.
How is protecting minors from these gender-transformative treatments and surgeries government overreach? We also don’t allow minors to buy alcohol, but this is overreach? That makes no sense.
This law is designed to protect minors from having their parents irrevocably ruin their lives in the name of these anti-science, radical beliefs. If someone wants to ruin their lives with this garbage when they are 18, so be it. But until then they should be protected!
The good news here is that General Assembly is overwhelmingly Republican and can likely override this veto. Let’s hope they can get enough vote to do this, because Hutchinson is dead wrong on this.