Origanalist
01-18-2020, 07:35 PM
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – This is only the first week of the legislative session, but one South Dakota bill is already getting national attention. House Bill 1057 is known as the Vulnerable Child Protection Act.
The proposed law would impact transgender children, their doctors and their families.
If passed, the Vulnerable Child Protection Act would make it a class four felony for South Dakota doctors to perform gender changing or affirming surgeries on children. It would also make it illegal to prescribe puberty-halting medications and hormones to children.
Representative Fred Deutsch introduced this bill to the House on Tuesday.
“It is a bill to protect vulnerable South Dakota children who have some challenges with understanding if they’re a boy or a girl. It’s the same penalty as we established in the Female Genital Mutilation bill, I copied the penalty from that bill. I think of the procedures as similar, they’re both mutilating procedures,” Representative Fred Deutsch said.
Deutsch says he began working on this bill nine months ago after meeting children on social media.
“I listened to their stories and the next thing I did was check if there’s any doctors in South Dakota that provide these mutilating or sterilizing procedures, I found there were a number of them and decided to draft a bill to protect our children from these doctors,” Representative Deutsch said.
https://www.wavy.com/news/politics/south-dakota-bill-could-criminalize-doctors-who-perform-gender-affirming-surgeries/
The proposed law would impact transgender children, their doctors and their families.
If passed, the Vulnerable Child Protection Act would make it a class four felony for South Dakota doctors to perform gender changing or affirming surgeries on children. It would also make it illegal to prescribe puberty-halting medications and hormones to children.
Representative Fred Deutsch introduced this bill to the House on Tuesday.
“It is a bill to protect vulnerable South Dakota children who have some challenges with understanding if they’re a boy or a girl. It’s the same penalty as we established in the Female Genital Mutilation bill, I copied the penalty from that bill. I think of the procedures as similar, they’re both mutilating procedures,” Representative Fred Deutsch said.
Deutsch says he began working on this bill nine months ago after meeting children on social media.
“I listened to their stories and the next thing I did was check if there’s any doctors in South Dakota that provide these mutilating or sterilizing procedures, I found there were a number of them and decided to draft a bill to protect our children from these doctors,” Representative Deutsch said.
https://www.wavy.com/news/politics/south-dakota-bill-could-criminalize-doctors-who-perform-gender-affirming-surgeries/