❓WHAT HAPPENED: A federal appeals court overturned a block on an Arkansas law prohibiting transgender medical procedures for minors, allowing the legislation to take effect.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Arkansas lawmakers, and Republican officials, including Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The ruling was issued on August 12 and pertains to Arkansas—the first state to pass such legislation.
💬KEY QUOTE: “This is a win for common sense—and for our kids,” Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
🎯IMPACT: The decision allows Arkansas to enforce its law, which has inspired similar legislation in over two dozen states.
An Arkansas law that bars medical professionals from inflicting transgender-related drug and hormone therapies or mutilation surgeries on minors can now be enforced, following a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. In an 8-2 ruling issued Tuesday, the court overturned a previous block on the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act, which was originally passed four years ago.
The SAFE Act prohibits doctors from performing surgeries such as breast or genital removal on minors, prescribing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, and referring children for such treatments. Lawmakers have cited the procedures’ often irreversible effects on fertility, bone density, and physical development as justification for the law.
“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,” the court’s majority wrote in their opinion.
The ruling closely follows a recent Supreme Court decision upholding Tennessee’s similar ban on transgender procedures for minors. The Eighth Circuit judges referred to that case multiple times in their opinion.
The Arkansas law had been blocked since July 2021 by a district judge, following a lawsuit brought by four transgender minors and two medical providers. The plaintiffs argued the law violated the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. However, the appeals court rejected their arguments, stating, “To the contrary, the Act does not classify based on transgender status. Like the Tennessee law upheld by the Supreme Court, the Act effectively divides minors into two groups. In one group are minors seeking drugs or surgeries for the purposes that the Act prohibits. In the other group are minors seeking drugs or surgeries for purposes the Act does not prohibit.”
Arkansas Republican leaders praised the court’s decision. “I applaud the court’s decision and am pleased that children in Arkansas will be protected from experimental procedures,” said Attorney General Tim Griffin.
Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders added, “Arkansas’ first-in-the-nation law to protect kids from life-altering gender experiments is back in effect!”
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