Earlier this month, the GOP-dominated Arkansas legislature overrode the GOP governor’s veto of a bill that bans gender-confirming medical treatments for trans youths.
A federal judge blocked that law on Wednesday, July 21, 2021, pending an ACLU lawsuit to strike it down as a violation of those youths’ constitutional rights. While a preliminary injunction isn’t a final legal ruling, judges typically issue such orders when they see problems with a law. Read story here.
This issue highlights Republican medical hypocrisy in stark relief. Nowhere in the U.S. is Covid-19 vaccination required by government, yet Republicans claim government outreach efforts encouraging people are an intolerable intrusion into people’s private lives, even though unvaccinated people pose a clear and present threat to the entire community.
At the same time, they’re passing highly intrusive laws that intervene in private medical care which affects no one except the patients, in order to enforce their personal religious or ideological beliefs of a bigoted nature on those individuals — in other words, laws that actually deserve the label of “tyranny.”
When Republicans claim they’re for personal freedom and individual liberty, don’t believe them. It’s not true. They’re for making everyone else conform to their personal beliefs, norms, and values. And, as the Arkansas case illustrates, they don’t hesitate to use the power of government to force their will on others.
A preliminary injunction is not unusual, and isnot a good indicator of what the judge may ultimately rule. Nor on what appeals courts could rule which are important to trial judges. Generally judges want to be found to have made the right call.) An injunction merely keeps the status quo, even a judge inclined to rule for the law may keep the status quo to keep higher courts happy and tamp down an appearance of bias for or against a law.
Only the merits of the issue before the juge matter. Not Covid, not Republican efforts, Saturday Night Live, ect. The court could rule or appeals could rule these youth have no rights s courts have ruled on other issues in the past. They have no right to drink. They have no right to smoke. They have no right to sex. They have no right to call a school marm fat and a bitch at school especially is she is just that. Parents also have rights. Doctors have rights, It is also complicated as once a certain line is crossed it is irreversible. If the government were to allow the castration of a man or the sterilization of a woman in general or demand it that would be very concerning to citizens in general, and that is involved in this case. Maybe we all want our teens to have the opportunity to make babies before switching as nature does not allow us to do so, but other animals may, mother nature is kinda a bitch.
The legal, practical, and moral issues are complicated; and, one could add, beyond your grasp. I don’t claim to be on top of them, either, although common sense suggests these patients, their doctors, social workers, etc., have a better grip on what’s best for these youths than the Republican bigots in the legislature do. But I know hypocrisy when I see it, which is the main point of this posting, and one your comment ignores.