Kansas’ Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly has vetoed a measure that would prohibit the provision of body-mutilating sex-change surgeries and hormone drugs to trans-identified minors.
Kelly announced her veto of Senate Bill 63 on Tuesday.
“Infringing on parental rights is not appropriate, nor is it a Kansas value,” she said in a statement. “As I’ve said before, it is not the job of politicians to stand between a parent and a child who needs medical care of any kind. This legislation will also drive families, businesses, and health care workers out of our state, stifling our economy and exacerbating our workforce shortage issue.”
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Kelly accused the Republican-controlled state legislature of pushing “for government interference in Kansans’ private medical decisions instead of focusing on issues that improve all Kansans’ lives.”
Senate Bill 63, known as the Help Not Harm Act, prohibits the prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as well as the performance of gender transition surgeries on minors with gender dysphoria.
The measure passed the Kansas Senate in a 32-8 vote late last month, while the Kansas House of Representatives approved the legislation in an 83-35 vote. The votes in both chambers fell largely along party lines, with most Republicans supporting it and most Democrats opposing the bill.
One Senate Democrat joined with all Republicans to support the bill, while one House Republican sided with Democrats by opposing it.
In a statement published Wednesday, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Matt Sharp said his firm is “disappointed by Gov. Kelly’s veto of SB 63, a law that protects vulnerable kids from radical gender ideology.”
“By vetoing this critical legislation, Gov. Kelly ignored biological reality and the growing body of evidence about the damage that these drugs and surgeries inflict on children’s minds and bodies,” Sharp added.
“Now and always, children who experience discomfort with their sex need the loving embrace of family, not risky drugs and life-altering procedures that send them down a one-way path of lifetime medicalization. We hope the Kansas Legislature will put the state’s children first and promptly override this veto.”
The votes in support of the legislation in both chambers exceeded the two-thirds threshold required to override a gubernatorial veto, suggesting that the bill has enough support to become law without Kelly’s approval. If the veto is overridden, Kansas would become the 27th state to implement such a ban.
Other states that have passed similar legislation are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The push to prohibit trans-identified youth from obtaining puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones comes from concerns about their long-term impacts.
The American College of Pediatricians has warned that puberty blockers can cause “osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, cognitive impairment and, when combined with cross-sex hormones, sterility” while side effects of cross-sex hormones can include “an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers across their lifespan.”
Shortly after taking office last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing it as the official policy of the U.S. not to “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another” and “rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
While the order stops short of implementing a nationwide ban on so-called gender interventions for minors, it directs the heads of federal government agencies to “take appropriate steps to ensure that institutions receiving Federal research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.” The order also seeks to ensure that the coverage of such procedures is banned from TRICARE, the healthcare system administered by the U.S. Department of Defense. In response to the order, some hospitals have announced they will suspend such services.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
