Arkansas A.G. Continues Defending SAFE Act in Federal Court

Transgender, , ,

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.

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Federal Court Rules Indiana Can Protect Children from Sex-Change Procedures

Transgender,

Last week the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling effectively letting the State of Indiana protect children from sex-change procedures.

Joshua Arnold with The Washington Stand reports,

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld an Indiana law protecting minors from gender transition procedures last Wednesday. The appellate court had stayed a preliminary injunction that blocked all of the law except its prohibition on gender transition surgeries in a simple order on February 27, allowing the law to take effect. Wednesday’s ruling (K.C. v. Medical Licensing Board of Indiana) included a 50-page opinion for why the court reversed the lower court ruling, vacated the preliminary injunction, and remanded the lawsuit back to the district court.

In response to the ruling, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel and Vice President of Litigation Strategy and Center for Conscience Initiatives Jonathan Scruggs said,

“Indiana rightly enacted a law that protects the health and welfare of all children—supporting their natural biological development and ensuring that children experiencing gender dysphoria have a chance for comprehensive healing and compassionate mental health support. Relying on bad science, activists and the Biden-Harris administration have pushed these harmful procedures across the country and even taken steps to prevent state legislatures from regulating these procedures. These procedures have devastated countless lives, which is why countries that were previously leaders in so-called ‘gender affirming’ care are reversing course and curtailing these experimental efforts to alter children’s bodies. The 7th Circuit was on solid ground to uphold Indiana’s law that allows children to receive the help they need—safely.”

ADF filed a friend-of-the-court brief last year asking the court to let Indiana’s law to go into effect.

This is a significant victory.

Sex-change surgeries and similar 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 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was prompted to add a warning label to puberty blockers after discovering they caused some biological girls to experience brain swelling.

Three years ago a major hospital in Sweden announced that it would no longer give puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to kids. This year the United Kingdom announced a new policy protecting children from puberty-blocking drugs.

In 2021 the Arkansas Legislature overwhelmingly passed the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act — a law very similar to Indiana’s. The SAFE Act is a good law that protects children in Arkansas from cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and sex-reassignment surgeries.

Unfortunately, the SAFE Act has been blocked in court since 2021.

It’s good to see federal courts let Indiana protect children. We believe our federal courts ultimately will recognize that Arkansas’ 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.

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Updated: Report Shows Hospitals in Arkansas Performed Sex-Change Procedures on Children

Transgender,

A report from the group Do No Harm shows hospitals in Arkansas have performed sex-change procedures or prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to dozens of children.

Do No Harm’s Stop The Harm report analyzes medical data from across the country. The report relied on data collected from commercial insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, and VA claims, which Do No Harm says was thoroughly reviewed by medical professionals. The Stop The Harm report made headlines last month after it revealed that some 14,000 minors underwent transgender surgeries, took puberty blockers, or were given cross-sex hormone injections, nationwide between 2019 and 2023.

Do No Harm’s data for Arkansas reveals that from 2019 to 2023, 41 children were treated as “sex-change patients” in the state.

Of those children, data from the report shows three underwent sex-change surgeries at UAMS.

Thirty-eight children received puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. The report also reveals that from 2019 to 2023, doctors and hospitals in Arkansas wrote 234 prescriptions for children to be given puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

Unity Health in Arkansas Does Not Perform Sex-Change Procedures

The Stop The Harm report initially published in October mistakenly indicated Unity Health in Arkansas performed sex-change procedures on children, and Family Council shared this incorrect information in its initial coverage of the report.

Family Council subsequently obtained a statement from Unity Health President and CEO LaDonna Johnston, saying,

The information published by Do No Harm and then re-published by Family Council on November 18, 2024 regarding Unity Health is false and incorrect. Unity Health, an Arkansas nonprofit corporation, operates three general hospitals in Arkansas: Unity Health-White County Medical Center in Searcy, Unity Health-Newport in Newport, and Unity Health-Jacksonville, in Jacksonville. The Unity Health hospitals in Arkansas are not affiliated in any way with other Unity Health organizations that are located outside of Arkansas.

It is not possible for any physician or other practitioner to obtain privileges to perform “sex change” procedures at any of the three Unity Health hospitals, as these procedures are not allowed to be performed at any Unity Health hospital by the Unity Health Board of Directors.

Family Council also reached out to representatives of Do No Harm, who reviewed data from Arkansas for 2019-2023 with their data broker.

Following the review, Do No Harm determined that sex-change procedures performed at a facility in a different state were misattributed to Unity Health in Arkansas. The facilities are not affiliated with one another.

Do No Harm provided Family Council with a statement correcting the mistake, saying,

We would like to thank Unity Health in Arkansas for bringing a data error to our attention. Claims data incorrectly sourced to Unity Health in Arkansas should have been assigned to a Unity in another state. We apologize to Arkansas Unity Health for the error and thank its leaders for bringing it to our attention.

Do No Harm also provided Family Council with copies of the corrected claims data used in preparing the report. Family Council can confirm that Unity Health does not appear in the list of facilities that performed sex-change procedures or prescribed puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones to children in Arkansas.

Sex-Change Procedures Hurt Children

Medical professionals at UAMS and elsewhere in Arkansas have performed sex-change procedures or prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children despite the fact that scientific evidence increasingly shows sex-change procedures hurt kids.

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 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was prompted to add a warning label to puberty blockers after discovering they caused some biological girls to experience brain swelling.

Three years ago a major hospital in Sweden announced that it would no longer give puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to kids. This year the United Kingdom announced a new policy protecting children from puberty-blocking drugs.

In 2021 the Arkansas Legislature overwhelmingly passed the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act. The SAFE Act is a good law that protects children in Arkansas from cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and sex-reassignment surgeries.

Unfortunately, the SAFE Act has been blocked in court since 2021. The data that Do No Harm collected indicates doctors and hospitals in Arkansas performed sex-change procedures and prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children before passage of the SAFE Act and during the years that the SAFE Act has been enjoined by the court.

More and more, people understand it’s critical for us to stand up for Arkansas’ children.  Public opinion is shifting on this issue, with more Americans saying that it’s morally wrong to change genders. We believe our federal courts ultimately will recognize that 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.

This article has been updated as of November 27, 2024, to reflect that Unity Health in Arkansas does not perform sex-change procedures, and to provide additional statements from Do No Harm clarifying that sex-change procedures performed at a facility outside of Arkansas between 2019 and 2023 were misattributed to Unity Health in Arkansas.

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