Senator Ed Durr has introduced legislation to protect children from irreversible treatments and surgeries that would change their sex, prevent or delay puberty, or result in sterilization.

Sen. Ed Durr has introduced legislation to protect children from irreversible treatments and surgeries that would change their sex, prevent or delay puberty, or result in sterilization. (Pixabay)

“Children do not have the maturity to make life-changing medical decisions that cannot be reversed,” said Durr (R-3). “We cannot discount the fact that 10-, 11-, and 12-year-old children are extremely impressionable and can be influenced by adults who may push them to make choices they cannot fully comprehend. We can protect children from unnecessary and permanent harm by delaying these important decisions until they are adults.”

Durr has introduced the “Child Protection and Anti-Mutilation Act” to address these serious concerns.

The bill, S-3076, prohibits any person from, with regard to an unemancipated person under 18 years of age, engaging in, performing, or causing to be performed the following practices:

1. prescribing or administering puberty blocking medication to stop or delay normal puberty;
2. prescribing or administering supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or other androgens to females;
3. prescribing or administering supraphysiologic doses of estrogen to males;
4. performing surgeries that result in sterilization, including, but not limited to, castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, orchiectomy, and penectomy;
5. performing surgeries that artificially construct tissue with the appearance of genitalia that differs from the individual’s sex, including, but not limited to, metoidioplasty, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty; or
6. removing any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue, except in the case of a male circumcision.

The restrictions established under the bill would not apply to procedures undertaken to treat a minor with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development.

Violations of the legislation would a crime of the third degree, which is punishable by imprisonment for three to five years, a fine of up to $15,000, or both.

“It’s nothing short of child abuse to allow minors, including pre-pubescent kids, to undergo life-changing, medically unnecessary treatments and surgeries when they are unable to fully understand the inescapable consequences of these actions,” added Durr. “It’s absolutely obscene that we’re letting kids agree to mutilating surgeries that can never be undone. No adult should ever look back wondering how they were allowed to make such monumental decisions as a child that they now regret.”