Ohio’s Republican Governor, Mike DeWine, signed an “emergency” executive order on Friday banning transgender surgeries for minors, one year after he vetoed a bill that would have had a similar effect.
The bill would also have banned cross-sex hormones and so-called puberty blockers for children, measures DeWine’s executive order evidently omits. The bill would also have addressed fairness in women’s sports, an issue DeWine’s order also does not handle.
DeWine vetoed House Bill 68, the Enact Ohio Saving Adolescents from Experimentation Act, last year. The bill would prohibit physicians from performing gender-reassignment surgery on a minor and from prescribing cross-sex hormones or drugs to stop puberty for the purpose of gender transition. It also would allow individuals to sue if they are deprived of a level playing field in sports due to gender engagement and protect children’s right to be raised according to their biological sex.
Ohio legislators had called a special session on Jan. 10 to override the veto.
“Although I vetoed … House Bill 68, I stated clearly in my Veto Message that I agreed with the General Assembly that no gender transition surgeries should be performed on anyone under the age of 18 and I directed agencies under my jurisdiction to review rules to prohibit this practice in Ohio,” DeWine said in his executive order.
In the order, he declared that “an emergency exists requiring the immediate implementation of rules 3701-59-06 and 3701-83-60 of the Ohio Administrative Code.” DeWine’s office did not immediately provide the text of the rules upon The Daily Signal’s request.
According to the executive order, the rules “would prohibit gender transition surgeries on anyone under the age of 18 in Ohio’s hospitals and healthcare facilities, including inpatient surgical services.”
Last year, DeWine framed his veto as an attempt to bring discussion on a controversial issue and to prevent having the government determine what health decisions are best for children.
“Were House Bill 68 to become law, Ohio would be saying that the state, that the government, knows better what is best for a child than the two people who love that child the most, the parents,” DeWine said.
The governor also suggested that an administrative rulemaking process would be more likely to produce rules that do withstand legal challenges. Similar laws restricting medical interventions have faced court challenges, although some have survived legal scrutiny.
While DeWine recounted meeting with “people on all sides of the issue to hear their concerns,” including detransitioners and critics of transgender interventions, he also echoed pro-transgender activists who claim that minors with gender dysphoria (the painful and persistent condition of identifying with the gender other than their biological sex) will commit suicide if they can’t take hormones or undergo other “treatments” to make their bodies resemble those of the opposite sex.
“Ultimately, I believe this is about protecting human life,” DeWine said. “Some parents have told me that their child would not have survived, would be dead now” without such treatments.
He also recalled speaking to people who argued that if they had not undergone these treatments, “they would have taken their life when they were teens.”
He invited state legislators “to join with us to collaborate,” insisting that he shares some of their goals, including preventing surgeries for minors and obtaining “complete data” on the interventions.
Some medical professionals have attested to the experimental nature of “gender-affirming care” and the potential for counseling and therapy to address the underlying issues with gender dysphoria.
Republican Rep. Gary Click, the bill’s primary sponsor, stated to The Daily Signal that he would not let the veto prevent him from protecting children from experimental “treatments” that leave them scarred and infertile or from upholding fairness in women’s sports.
Click noted that “The SAFE Act has been thoroughly vetted through two public hearings, both chambers of the legislature, and numerous witnesses,” following DeWine’s veto.
He stated, “I have invited the administration to participate in the process from the beginning, and I continue to believe that we would have benefited sooner if that had been done.”
The notion that the executive order the governor signed today might be impacted by a veto was dismissed by DeWine’s office.
Dan Tierney, DeWine’s press secretary, told The Daily Signal in an emailed statement on Friday that, “Hypothetically speaking, a potential veto [override] would have no potential impact on the emergency rules issued today.”
Democratic candidates for governor criticized DeWine’s veto. DeWine, according to former President Donald Trump, “succumbed to the Radical Left,” while Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., urged the Ohio Legislature to “override the veto done by Trump-endorsed Gov.” DeWine. “Shame on DeWine,” said entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
This breaking news item is being updated.
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