Alabama uses the overturning of Roe vs. Wade to go after Trans rights
The Roe vs Wade decision is not only going to be a fight for women’s rights, but as many have previously stated, it will also continue to challenge human rights across the board. Alabama is already doing it. This is why the outcome of the decision is important for us all.
Less than a week after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion in the U.S., Alabama has used the overturning of the important ruling in an attempt to prohibit gender-affirming health care to trans youth and adults, according to The Advocate. The state has announced that it is seeking to lift a federal court’s injunction that blocked an April law that made providing puberty blockers or hormones to youth a felony offense, and any adult found guilty of doing so could be punished with up to 10 years in prison.
According to the Associated Press, Alabama attorney general’s office filed a brief that continues to argue that gender-affirming care isn’t “deeply rooted in our history or traditions,” so it has the right to be denied per the U.S. Constitution.
The brief states: “No one — adult or child — has a right to transitioning treatments that is deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition. The State can thus regulate or prohibit those interventions for children, even if an adult wants the drugs for his child,” the brief states. “The Constitution reserves to the State—not courts or medical interest groups—the authority to determine that these sterilizing interventions are too dangerous for minors.”
The brief goes even further in stating why parents shouldn’t even be able to make a decision about what’s best for their child, stating: “Just as the parental relationship does not unlock a Due Process right allowing parents to obtain medical marijuana or abortions for their children, neither does it unlock a right to transitioning treatments. The Constitution reserves to the state — not courts of medical interest groups — the authority to determine that these sterilizing interventions are too dangerous for minors.”
“It is no surprise that Alabama and other extremely conservative states are going to take up that invitation as forcefully as they can,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, to the Associated Press.
“Justice Thomas’s concurrence was a declaration of war on groups already under attack, and we expect the hostility to be escalated.”
Just as this attempt is no surprise coming from Alabama, many have already expected other states, such as Texas, to follow suit with further attempts to overturn rulings that gave rights to Women, Queer people and other marginalized communities.
The Attorney General of Texas, Ken Patton, a Republican, was recently asked by an anchor on the NewsNation cable network if he would support a law that outlawed sodomy, to which he replied:
“Yeah, I mean, there’s all kinds of issues here, but certainly, the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don’t think there was any constitutional provision dealing with,” Paxton replied. “They were legislative issues. And this is one of those issues. And there may be more.”
He goes further to say: “Look, my job is to defend state law, and I’ll continue to do that. That is my job under the Constitution, and I’m certainly willing and able to do that.” He said he’d have to see the actual legislation, but “ultimately, if it’s constitutional, we’re going to go defend it.”
Buckle up, folks. It’s going to be a long fight.
SOURCE: THE ADVOCATE and THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
