Ohio’s Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday voted to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill that would ban sex-change services for minors and bar transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports.
The repeal passed in a 23-9 vote after the Ohio House earlier this month voted in favor of overriding the Republican governor’s veto.
Ohio House Bill 68 prohibits doctors from prescribing hormones and puberty blockers for minors and from performing gender reassignment surgery on people under 18.
The legislation also prohibits transgender women from playing on high school and college sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
Last December, DeWine vetoed the comprehensive bill after it passed the state legislature by a wide margin, opting instead to issue an executive order that would only ban gender reassignment surgery on minors.
DeWine vetoed HB 68 last month after it passed the Ohio legislature by a wide margin. AP
“I think the parents should make that decision and not the government,” DeWine, 76, said ahead of Wednesday’s vote, according to the Ohio Capital Journal.
He previously warned that the “consequences of this bill could not be more profound” when he vetoed the measure.
“Ultimately, I believe this is about protecting human life,” DeWine said. “Many parents told me that their children would not be safe, would be dead today if they had not received the care they received from one of Ohio’s children’s hospitals. I have also been told by those who are now adults that but for this care, they would have taken their lives when they were teenagers.”
The Ohio House overrode Dewine’s veto earlier this month. AP
Republican state Sen. Kristina Roegner, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, argued that “gender-affirming care” has become a “profit center” for hospitals seeking to turn minors into “permanent patients.”
“There are men and there are women and there are men and there are women and they are different,” Roegner said on the Senate floor. “Gender is not fluid. There is no such thing as a gender spectrum.”
“This is a fairly large profit center for hospitals that refuse this procedure to teenagers, children,” he added. “They are incapable of making life-changing decisions.”
HB 68 is set to become law in the spring. Reuters
Democratic state senator Bill DeMora argued that the lives of transgender youth would be “destroyed” as a result of the Senate’s veto.
“Instead of passing one of dozens of bipartisan, nonsensical bills that would actually help Ohioans, the Senate decided to target trans youth by passing HB 68,” he tweeted. “Lives have been destroyed today. The National Assembly was given a rare opportunity to reflect after passing a bad bill and it was wasted.”
A grandfather clause in HB 68 would allow physicians who have treated transgender patients to continue
The law will go into effect in the spring.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
