Arkansas A.G. Continues Defending SAFE Act in Federal Court
Last week Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office filed a supplemental letter with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in defense of Arkansas’ SAFE Act.
The Save Adolescents From Experimentation — or SAFE — Act is a 2021 law the Arkansas Legislature passed to protect children from sex-reassignment surgeries, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and similar procedures.
These procedures can leave children sterilized and scarred for life. Doctors do not know the long term effects that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones might have on people, but files recently leaked from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) organization make it clear that medical professionals performing gender-transitions on kids have been fully aware that these procedures can lead to lasting regret and painful complications — some of which may even be life-threatening.
In the past four years, a major hospital in Sweden has announced that it would no longer give puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to kids, the U.K. has adopted policies that protect children from puberty blockers, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has added a warning label to puberty blockers after discovering they caused some biological girls to experience swelling in the brain.
Unfortunately, Arkansas’ SAFE Act has been tied up in court for more than three years, and a federal judge in Little Rock has blocked the state from enforcing the law. However, attorneys for the State of Arkansas have asked the Eighth Circuit to reverse that decision.
On November 18, attorneys from the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office filed a supplemental letter with the Eighth Circuit pointing out that federal courts had allowed Indiana to enforce its law protecting children from sex-change procedures. The A.G.’s team says the decision underscores why the Eighth Circuit should let Arkansas enforce the SAFE Act.
Reports show doctors in Arkansas have given dozens of children puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones, and some children even have undergone sex-change surgeries. Arkansas needs to protect children from sex-reassignment. We applaud Attorney General Tim Griffin and his team for defending the SAFE Act. We believe our courts ultimately will recognize the SAFE Act is a good law and uphold it as constitutional.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
