Texas and Florida
Folks in Texas and the Nation are outraged. A woman carrying a fetus with a terminal defect, is required to carry to full term, even though the fetus is 90% likely to be still-born, and 100% likely to die in the first few months. And, despite the fact that the birth is likely to destroy the woman’s ability to have further children, the Texas Supreme Court banned her access to abortion care.
She had to leave the state to find the care she needed. No one is sure what legal sanctions she, and her family, might face when she returns to the “Lone Star State”. But that’s the way it is in Texas, the “state” knows better than the individual (and their physicians) what the right medical treatment is.
Folks in Florida and the Nation are outraged. Parents whose children have “gender dysphoria”; children who mentally are one gender trapped in a body of the other gender, are unable to get care for their kids. The “state” decided that those kids don’t deserve care until they reach adulthood. The problem is: many of those kids might not reach adulthood. Suicide “ideation” among teenagers with gender dysphoria is high; they might not live to make decisions as adults (Guardian). But the leaders of Florida, who spout about the “right of parents” when it comes to education, have no problems taking away the rights of parents to make the best medical decisions for their children. Instead, the “state” knows what’s best – and somehow, they don’t see the contradiction.
Ohio
Texas and Florida are in the headlines, for restricting abortion rights and parental choices. But somehow, Ohio seems to get a big political “pass”.
Sure, Ohio was a big deal last month. The voters, in a huge turnout of 49.7% in an off-off year election, voted for a State Constitutional amendment protecting the right of women to control health care, including abortions. The Republican leaders of the state from the Governor on down, including the Secretary of State who controls the election apparatus; all campaigned against the Amendment. But 57% of Ohioans still came out in support, and now those same leaders are struggling to find ways to curtail the scope of the change.
But this week, the same leaders got some “payback”. The state legislature passed the “Save Adolescents from Experimentation” Act, the “SAFE” Act. It makes children “safe” from parents allowing their gender dysphoric child to choose medical care affirming their gender, just like Florida. On the floor of the State Senate, you heard Senators decrying the “castration” and “mutilation” of teenagers.
Fake News
But that’s not what happens here in Ohio (or pretty much anywhere else in the Nation). The medical care for gender dysphoric children consists of hormone therapy and mental health assessments. Surgical interventions aren’t done here in Ohio. As Nick Lashutka, spokesman for Ohio Children’s Hospital Association noted, “Children’s hospitals in Ohio do not perform surgeries on minors for the condition of gender dysphoria”( NBC4). But that’s the “fake news”, the specter of surgery used to justify the “Safe” Act.
Make no mistake, our grandfatherly Governor will sign the bill. And he’ll make some statement about protecting children. But what he’s really doing is taking away parents’ rights to choose what’s best for their child. And he’ll do it with the high and mighty justification that the “state” knows better. This isn’t really about what’s “best” for those few children (Ohio hospitals have served about 3,300 individuals in ten years whose first appointment at a gender clinic took place when they were under eighteen – NBC4). It’s about the MAGA Republicans that still control the laws, enforcing their minority views.
Punish the Few
That’s an average of 330 kids out of 2.5 million in the state – .0132%. Ohio isn’t “protecting” those kids, they aren’t getting “SAFE”. They’re faced with a loss of care, and a future that requires them to suffer, or leave the state. But it’s the politically “right” (in the left v right way) thing to do, and that’s what Ohio is all about.
The same state Senate is now weighing-in on transgendered girls. The State is telling those very few who want to participate in school sports, they can’t. The Senate presents some “vision” of a fully developed “male” beating all the girls on the basketball court, or in the pool, or on the track. But here’s the facts. In Ohio, 350,000 kids annually participate in high school sports. Last year, six, just six, transgendered kids participated in girls’ sports. That’s .004%. And over the last eight years, there was a total of nineteen (10 middle school, 9 high school) in girls’ sports.
Sins of Ohio
They aren’t State Champions. They’re kids trying to “fit in” and be as normal as they can be, in a world that isn’t allowing them to live normal lives. But the powers that be in the state are demanding they be “outed” as “biologic males”, and forced to participate as boys, or not at all. It’s just another way to energize their political base, instead of doing what’s right for those few children.
The saddest part is there’s little outcry, other than from those directly impacted. Ohioans, and the Nation, just let it “roll”. Ohio’s not Texas, and not Florida. DeWine (the Governor) or DeRose (the Secretary of State) aren’t running for President. But the “sins” of Ohio are just as bad. We are letting politics determine the present and future lives of the kids that need the most protection. The last thing they need is “the State” telling them, and their parents, how to live.
