Posted on 04/26/2023 6:02:24 AM PDT by Morgana
PIERRE (LifeSiteNews) — South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Monday signed a bill that bans “gender transition” drugs and surgeries for minors.
“South Dakota’s kids are our future,” Noem said in a statement. “I am signing HB 1080 to protect our kids from harmful, permanent medical procedures.”
HB 1080, nicknamed the “Help Not Harm” bill, bars healthcare professionals from prescribing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors and performing “any sterilizing surgery” “to alter the appearance of, or to validate a minor’s perception of, the minor’s sex, if that appearance or perception is inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”
The new law also prohibits any surgery that “artificially constructs tissue having the appearance of genitalia differing from the minor’s sex” as well as other procedures to “remove any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.”
Medical professionals found to have violated the law must have their licenses revoked and can face civil action from individuals mutilated by “gender transitions” as children.
HB 1080 passed the South Dakota Senate last week in an overwhelming 30-4 vote after passing the House by a similar margin in January.
It takes effect on July 1 and requires doctors to wean minors off hormone drugs by no later than December 31.
Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, praised South Dakota leaders “for acting to protect children in their state from this medical malpractice” in a statement on Monday.
“The transgender industry’s assault on vulnerable children is appalling,” he wrote, noting a recent whistleblower report that exposed extreme, irreversible damage done to children at a gender clinic in Missouri. “It is truly a horror show.”
“The momentum for this movement fighting the transgender industry continues to grow, and we’re just getting started,” Schilling concluded.
The passage of HB 1080 came despite the objections of Sanford Health, a healthcare system based in Sioux Falls and the state’s largest employer, which provides so-called “gender-affirming care,” including puberty blockers. In 2020, Sanford Health successfully lobbied against similar legislation that Noem also reportedly opposed behind the scenes.
Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are linked to serious and life-threatening side effects, including cardiovascular diseases, stroke, cancer, and fertility problems. Neither type of drug has been approved by the FDA for gender dysphoria or studied in randomized controlled trials or longitudinal studies with gender-confused minors.
“Gender-affirming” surgeries result in permanent mutilation and sterilization, and research shows that people who undergo them have exponentially higher rates of suicide.
With the enactment of HB 1080, South Dakota joins several other Republican-led states that have cracked down on chemical and surgical mutilation of minors in recent years.
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas have passed laws or taken executive action to restrict the dangerous, experimental practices.
Utah last month became the first state to protect children from “gender transitions” in 2023 with a law that bans sterilizing surgeries and places a moratorium on hormone drugs.
Similar bills have already passed at one state legislative chamber this year in Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Can there be any more of a dividing line between liberal and conservative states?
She’s late to the issue but did finally sign it. Thankfully she followed many other governors good wisdom. She’ll get there.
Other than abortion? No.
Yet still caved to the NCAA on men in women’s sports...
I’m glad she did it but does anyone believe she would have have signed this if she wasn’t gearing up for a presidential run as a MAGA conservative? I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her.
Yes, she learned a painful lesson on that one. But she did learn.
South Dakota enacts law banning transgender athletes from female sports
Yet another conservative star who isn't 100% perfect. Darn.
You know, I get the feeling there aren't any.
Yes, no one is 100%... but up until her cave to the NCAA, she was making it her signature issue... and had a bright future... that caving to the NCAA is something that will haunt her.
Can’t sell yourself as a champion of women’s rights, the cave to the NCAA over blackmail threats, and that’s exactly what she did.
O.K. finally the GOP Governors are being proactive on important issues.
So even when an error is corrected, it doesn't count in your book?
By that impossible standard, no one will meet your criteria. Not even, I'd wager, yourself.
Me run for office?
Sorry I subscribe to the Groucho Marx philosophy when it comes to that...
I don’t want to be a member of a club willing to have me as a member.
She corrected her ERROR, but she revealed her true self... She isn’t a fighter, she is a coward. She is the one who made a point of making women’s rights as her signature issue, no one else, and the first time came when her resolve was tested, she folded like a cheap suit.
I don’t wish her ill will, but when you claim “THIS IS WHO I AM AND WHAT I STAND FOR” and then very publicly fold on that supposed principle, then you are either lying about your principles, or your principles aren’t things you consider worth fighting for.
IF you do that once, you will do it again... no one forced her to make that cause “her” issue, she did... no one forced her to cave, she did... in fact she was in a unique situation to stand up with little chance of political harm to her.. and she still caved. She either doesn’t have the principles she claims she has, or she is willing to sell them out when push comes to shove.
She inflicted this on herself, and I do wish her all the best in life, but higher office? Don’t come looking to me for support.
Back to Noem, perhaps she just made a mistake? It happens.
Perhaps the axiom, "Don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity" applies here.
“Back to Noem, perhaps she just made a mistake? It happens.”
Yes, people do make mistakes... however, in this particular case it’s impossible to say whoops, I didn’t know better.
SHE herself was the one who decide to make this an issue and to publicly advocate for it.. so her caving when it was time to put up doesn’t come across as the “mistake” to me.
She had no downside when it came time to sign. The NCAA isn’t going to make or break South Dakota and the electorate of SD overwhelmingly supported it... She could have signed it without any real blowback other than the national left punditry waling, and who would care in SD?
What comes across as the mistake here, is that she didn’t truly believe what she was selling and when put in position to back it up, failed utterly.
This is like saying I an anti-abortion in all cases, and using that as a platform to power.. then when I have the power and I am handed a bill banning abortion, I veto it.
That isn’t a mistake that I didn’t sign it, it shows that I never really was 100% anti-abortion in all cases, but only said it as a means to self promote.
As I said, I wish her no ill will, but if she ever runs for national office, I know she doesn’t stand for things she professes to publicly.
And as I recall, the issue wasn’t the banning, but the original wording in the law exposing local schools to constant lawsuits.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.