

NEWS
The puberty blockers are ‘not as reversible as we always thought, and they have longer term effects on kids’ growth and development, including making them sterile and quite a number of things affecting their bone growth.’
Dr. Susan BradleyDr. Debra Soh / YouTube
Tue Mar 14, 2023 – 2:24 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — A gender clinic founder and former professor at the University of Toronto recently said that she regrets helping kids “transition,” and acknowledges that most gender-confused kids will grow out of their dysphoria by adulthood.
Dr. Susan Bradley “came out against the popular model of affirming children’s transgender identities and putting them on puberty blockers,” according to an interview published by the Daily Caller. She is the latest medical professional to confirm that transgender drugs and surgeries are dangerous, although she maintains the false idea that someone can switch genders.
She created the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry Child Youth and Family Gender Identity Clinic and led the University of Toronto’s Division of Child Psychiatry.
“Bradley, who is now in her early eighties, expressed regret that the clinic had participated in the administration of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria, which she now believes can cement a child’s sense of confusion out of which they would likely otherwise grow,” the Daily Caller reported. “She also expressed concern about the drugs’ side effects.”
“We were wrong,” Bradley said. The puberty blockers are “not as reversible as we always thought, and they have longer term effects on kids’ growth and development, including making them sterile and quite a number of things affecting their bone growth.”
“We thought that it was relatively safe, and endocrinologists said they’re reversible, and that we didn’t have to worry about it,” she further told the Daily Caller “I had this skepticism in the back of my mind all the time that maybe we were actually colluding and not helping them. And I think that’s proven correct in that, once these kids get started at any age on puberty blockers, nearly all of them continue to want to go to cross sex hormones.”
Bradley also “chaired the Subcommittee on Gender Dysphoria for the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the official manual of the American Psychiatric Association” and “produced research, along with other clinic doctors, showing that 87.8% of boys referred to their clinic for gender identity issues eventually ‘desisted,’ meaning they stopped believing they were actually girls and came to terms with their sex,” according to the Daily Caller.
This comports with an analysis by endocrinologist Dr. Michael Laidlaw that found puberty blockers generally lead people to more hormones and surgeries, even though “[a majority of] children who experience gender dysphoria but are allowed to go through puberty normally,…do not persist in identifying with the opposite sex.”
She also, based on her research, came to the understanding that most gender-confused patients are actually on the autism spectrum, a position that is backed by evidence.
“These kids are not faring well with the current affirmative approach,” she also said. “I don’t know that any kids actually could, given the capacity of a 10 or 12, or even 14 or 15 year old to understand the complexity of the decision that they’re making on their long term sexual and life function. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Bradley is not the only former insider to testify to the dangers of injecting kids with hormones or severing their reproductive ability.
Recently, a case manager at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital blew the whistle on what she saw as unethical behavior by her former co-workers.
“By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to ‘do no harm,’” Jamie Reed said. “Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.” She called the situation she witnessed “morally and medically appalling.”
While establishment medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association push transgender drugs and surgeries, Bradley’s testimony, based on her long academic and medical career, add to the growing body of evidence that disproves the safety and benefits of injecting kids with puberty blockers and removing healthy organs. It is not possible for someone to change his or her gender, but regardless, the evidence continues to show that the drugs and surgeries meant to affirm someone’s gender delusions are not safe and are not beneficial.
For example, two medical boards in Florida recently affirmed that children should not be receiving transgender drugs and surgeries, in line with a meta-analysis conducted by the state’s health department and Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo that questioned the data behind the push to chemically and surgically mutilate kids.
The Florida Department of Health (DOH) Guidance stated:
Based on the currently available evidence, ‘encouraging mastectomy, ovariectomy, uterine extirpation, penile disablement, tracheal shave, the prescription of hormones which are out of line with the genetic make-up of the child, or puberty blockers, are all clinical practices which run an unacceptably high risk of doing harm.
The guidance document pointed to a “a lack of conclusive evidence” for “gender transitioning” and “the potential for long-term, irreversible effects,” and noted that analysis of the benefits of hormonal interventions “show a trend of low-quality evidence, small sample sizes, and medium to high risk of bias.”
The conservative Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) also recently released a set of statements warning against the chemical and surgical mutilation of kids, sometimes called “gender-affirming care.”
The medical professionals said transgender drugs and surgeries are “medically and ethically contraindicated because of a lack of informed consent” and warned of “inherently unknown and unknowable long-term risks, and the consequences of removing normal, healthy organs are irreversible.”
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LifeSiteNews has published four separate reports on the harms of transgenderism, sourcing material from credible medical experts, social scientists, and “detransitioners.” The latter are gender-confused individuals who began to take drugs and/or underwent surgery to present as the opposite sex but have since stopped and regret their actions.
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– I’m Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
– Being a mom to 3 young children taught me not to believe every story I hear.
– So forgive me for not believing much of anything I heard tonight from President Biden.
– From out of control inflation and violent crime, to the dangerous border crisis and threat from China, Biden and the democrats have failed you– –– they know it, and you know it.
– And it’s time for a change
– Tonight, let us reaffirm our commitment to a timeless American idea, that government exists, not to rule the people, but to serve the people.
– Democrats want to rule us with more government control; but that’s not who we are– America is the greatest country the world has ever known because we are the freest country the world has ever known with a people who are strong and resilient.
– Five months ago I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It was a hard time for our family, particularly our kids, Scarlet, Huck and George; but we kept our faith and persevered.
–Thanks to exceptional doctors here in Arkansas, a successful surgery, and the grace of God,
I am cancer free!
–Through it all, I couldn’t help but think about my mom; she was twenty years old and in her first year of marriage when she was diagnosed with spinal cancer.
– The doctors told her she might not live– and if she did live, they said she’d never walk again; and if she did walk, she’d definitely never have children.
–The daughter she was told she would never have was just sworn in as the new Governor of Arkansas and is speaking to you tonight.
– Adversity and fear of the unknown can paralyze us, but faith propels us to charge boldly ahead.
–We can’t stand still in the face of great challenges
–You and I were put on this earth for such a time as this–to charge boldly ahead!
– I’ll be the first to admit, President Biden and I don’t have a lot in common.
– I’m for freedom.
– He’s for government control.
– At forty, I’m the youngest governor in the country; and at eighty he’s the oldest president in American history.
– I’m the first woman to lead my state; and he’s the first man to surrender his presidency to a
woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.
– In the radical left’s America, Washington taxes you and lights your hard earned money on fire.
– But you get crushed with high gas prices, empty grocery shelves, and our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race, but not to love one another or our great country.
– Whether Joe Biden believes this madness or is simply too weak to resist it, his administration has been completely hijacked by the radical left.
– The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left – the choice is between normal or crazy.
–It’s time for a new generation of Republican leadership.
– Upon taking office just a few weeks ago, I signed executive orders to ban CRT, racism, and indoctrination In our schools; eliminate the use of derogatory term “Latin X”‘ in our government; repealed covid orders and said “never again” to authoritarian mandates and shut-downs.
– Americans want common sense from their leaders; but in Washington, the Biden administration is doubling down on crazy.
– President Biden inherited the fastest economic recovery on record; the most secure border in history; cheap abundant homegrown energy; fast rising wages; a rebuilt military and a world that was stable and at peace.
– But over the last two years, Democrats destroyed it all.
– Despite Democrats’ trillions in reckless spending and mountains of debt, we now have the worst border crisis In American history.
– As a mom my heart breaks for every parent who’s lost a son or daughter to addiction. A hundred thousand Americans a year are now killed from drug overdoses, largely from fentanyl pouring across our Southern Border.
– Yet the Biden administration refuses to secure the border and save American lives.
– And after years of Democrat attacks on law enforcement, and calls to defund the police, violent criminals roam free while law-abiding families live in fear.
– Beyond our border from Afghanistan to Ukraine, from North Korea to Iran, President Biden’s weakness puts our nation and the world at risk.
– And the President’s refusal to stand up to China, our most formidable adversary, is dangerous and unacceptable.
– President Biden is unwilling to defend our border, defend our skies and defend our people; he is simply unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief.
– And while you reap the consequences of their failures, the Biden administration seems more interested in woke fantasies than the hard reality Americans face everyday.
– Most Americans simply want to live their lives in freedom and peace, but we are under attack in a left wing culture war we didn’t start and never wanted to fight.
– Every day we are told we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags, and worship their false idols, all while big government colludes with big tech to strip away the most American thing there is— your freedom of speech.
– That’s not normal, it’s crazy; and it’s wrong.
– Make no mistake – – Republicans will not surrender this fight; we will lead with courage and do what’s right, not what’s politically correct or convenient.
– Republicans believe in an America where strong families thrive in safe communities; where jobs are abundant and paychecks are rising; where the freedom our veterans shed their blood to defend is the birthright of every man, woman and child.
– These are the principles Republican governors are fighting for.
– And in Washington, under the leadership of senate Republicans and speaker Kevin McCarthy, we will hold the Biden administration accountable.
– Down the street from where I sit, is my Alma Mater, Little Rock Central High.
– As a student there, I will never forget watching my dad, Governor Mike Huckabee and President Bill Clinton hold the doors open to the Little Rock Nine – – doors that forty years earlier had been closed to them because they were black.
– Today, those children, once barred from the school house, are now heroes, memorialized in bronze at our statehouse.
– I’m proud of the progress our country has made and I believe giving every child access to a quality education regardless of their race or income is the civil rights issue of our day.
– Tomorrow, I will unveil an education package that will be the most far reaching, bold, conservative education reform in the country.
– My plan empowers parents with real choices, improves literacy and career readiness, and helps put a good teacher in every classroom by increasing their starting salary from one of the lowest to one of the highest in the nation.
– Here in Arkansas and across America, Republicans are working to end the policy of trapping kids in failing schools, and sentencing them to a lifetime of poverty.
– We will educate, not indoctrinate, our kids, and put students on a path to success.
– It’s time for a new generation to lead.
– This is our moment; this is our opportunity; a new generation born in the waning decades of the last century, shaped by economic boons and stock market busts; forged by the triumph of the Cold War and the tragedy of 9-11.
– A generation brimming with passion, and new ideas to solve age-old problems.
– A generation moored to our deepest values and oldest traditions yet unafraid to challenge the present order and find a better way forward.
– If we seize this moment together, America can once again be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
– During my two and a half years at the White House, I traveled on every foreign trip with the President.
– A trip I will never forget was on December 25th of 2018.
– My husband Bryan and I had just cleaned up wrapping paper that was shoved into every corner of our house (thanks to our three kids) when I had to walk out on my own family’s Christmas, unable to tell them where I was going that night, because the place I’d be traveling was so dangerous, they didn’t want anybody to know that the President was going to be on the ground, even for a few hours.
– We boarded Air Force One in complete and total darkness.
– There were no lights on the plane; no lights on the runway; our phones and computers shut down and turned in.
– We were going completely off the grid.
– Nearly 12 hours later in the pitch black of night we landed in a war-torn part of Western Iraq
– It was again a similar scene; no lights on the plane, no lights on the runway.
–The only thing you could see was coming from about a mile away In a dining hall where hundreds of troops who were in the fight against Isis, had gathered expecting to celebrate Christmas with senior military leadership from around the region.
– They had absolutely no idea that the President and First Lady were about to walk into that room; and when they did, it was a sight and a scene and a sound I hope I never forget: the room erupted!
– Men And women from every race, religion and region, every political party, every demographic you can imagine, started chanting in perfect unison, over and over and over again, USA! USA! USA!
– It was an absolutely perfect picture of what makes our country great.
– One of the young soldiers yelled from the back, “Mr. President, I re-enlisted in the military because of you”.
– The President said “And son, I’m here because of you”.
– Shortly after, that young soldier came up to me and he said, “Sarah you have a tough job”.
– I told him, “What I do is nothing! You take bombs and bullets; that’s a tough job”. And in a moment that I know I’ll cherish for the rest of my life, that Soldier reached up and pulled that Brave Rifles patch he wore on his shoulder and he placed it into my hand, a sign of ultimate respect, and he said, “Sarah! We are in this together!”
–Overwhelmed with emotion, and speechless, I just hugged him with tears in my eyes and a grateful heart for our heroes who keep us free.
– That young man and everyone who has served before him, all of those who serve alongside of him, and the thousands we know who will be called upon to serve after him, deserve to know they have a country and community back home doing our part in the fight for freedom.
– America is great because we are free.But today, our freedom is under attack, and the America we love is in danger.
– President Biden and the Democrats have failed you; and it’s time for a change.
– A new generation of Republican leaders are stepping up – not to be caretakers of the status quo, but to be change-makers for the American people.
– We know not what the future holds, but we know who holds the future in his hands.
– And with God as our witness,we will show the world that America is still the place where freedom reigns, and liberty will never die.
– Thank you.
– God Bless you.
– And God bless America.
There are more than 130 gender, sexual orientation and pronoun options listed on the San Francisco’s Guaranteed Income For Transgender People (GIFT) program application.
Under the GIFT program, 55 San Francisco residents who earn less than $600 monthly and identify as one of the many genders listed will receive $1,200 per month. Aside from woman and man, some of the genders eligible for the money include “genderfu@!,” “boi,” “sistergirls” and “butch.”
“The lengthy list of possible ‘gender identity’ and sexual orientation labels is an apparent attempt to be ‘inclusive,’” Mary Hasson, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which focuses on promoting the Catholic vision while responding to the challenges of gender ideology, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “But it really exposes the meaninglessness of these labels – and of the concept of ‘gender identity’ itself. ‘Gender identity’ means nothing more than one’s ‘perception of self’ or identity feelings – it can be fluid, and can change at any time. Because ‘gender identity’ is a self-defined identity label, the list is actually under-inclusive – there’s an infinite list of possible labels, because each person can self-describe in novel terms, and invent their own meaning for the chosen label.”
Listed on the GIFT application as a gender identity, “genderfu@!” is also considered a gender expression term, accordingto the University of Rhode Island Gender and Sexuality Center. “Gender__” is defined as an “expression that is intentionally fluid” and gives “no clear designation in terms of perceived gender.”
The gender identity “sistergirl” coincides with “brotherboy,” two terms used by indigenous Australians to describe transgender individuals, the TransHub, a resource platform for the transgender community, stated. “Sistergirl” is defined as a “gender diverse people that have a female spirit and take on female roles within the community” and “brotherboy” is defined as a “gender diverse people that have a male spirit and take on male roles within the community.”
The term “boi” is for queer people of color usually describing “queer women who present with masculinity,” according to the Trans Student Educational Resources, a youth run organization focused on educating the transgender community. “Butch” is an identity related to masculinity, and while it is “a distinct gender identity and/or expression” the term “does not necessarily imply that one also identifies as a woman or not.”
Applicants for GIFT can also identify as “graygender,” a person who feels as if they have a gender, but are “only mildly interested in expressing it,” the Women’s Media Center reported.
“This pronoun insanity is out of control,” Jaimee Michell, the founder of Gays Against Groomers, told the DCNF. “What’s most disturbing about it is the increasing trend of asking children what theirs are. Adults can barely make sense of this nonsense, let alone children. It’s confusing and not based in reality. There are only 2 genders — male and female.”
Other options include “FtX” which describes a person who is “assigned as a female at birth and identifies as nonbinary” and “MtX” which is a “person assigned as a male at birth and identifies as nonbinary,” according to PFLAG, a group focused on supporting LGBTQ people and their families.
“Aggressive” or “AG” is used by African-American and “Latin@” people for “masculine of center lesbians,” according to the University of Florida’s multicultural and diversity affairs. People who identify as “aggressive” also can use the term “stud” which is listed on the program application.
Applicants can also chose to identify as “androgynous” which means an individual has both male and female characteristics but is neither neither specifically feminine nor masculine, the Merriam-Webster dictionary stated. “Neutrois,” another option available, is for individuals who feel “genderless” or “neutral” about their gender, LGBTQ Nation, an LGBTQ focused news outlet, wrote.
If applicants would rather not specify their gender identity, the application gives the options “questioning,” “I don’t use labels” and “declined.”
The program application also allows individuals to choose their sexual orientation; “faggot,” “gay,” “dyke” and “lesbian” are listed as options for applications. “Same-gender loving” is listed and is a term of “lesbian, gay or bisexual to express attraction to and love of people of the same gender” but not necessarily the same sex, according to the Center for Inclusion and Social Change at the University of Colorado – Boulder.
“Skoliosexual” is considered a sexual orientation and is defined as those who “only feel attraction toward people who are nonbinary,” the Medical News Today stated. “Aromantic” refers to a person who has little or no romantic attraction to others and is usually “satisfied with friendships and other non-romantic relationships,” according to Bloomington Pride, a group devoted to putting on LGBTQ events.
Several pronoun options are also available including “zie/zim/zers,” “xe/xem/xyrs” and “fae/faer/faers,” according to the program application.
“The lists merely pander to the community of people who identify under the ‘transgender’ umbrella,” Hasson told the DCNF. “The lists serve no other purpose – in fact, a person might apply under one identity label and declare a different one by the time the application is processed. Objectively, it’s all meaningless.”
GIFT organizers did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation amd is reprinted by permission
This is a resource for confronting LGBT activists and helping gender-confused individuals realize the harms of chemical and surgical mutilations. This article is a summary of the findings, but LifeSiteNews will continue to expose the harms of transgenderism.
ANALYSIS
(LifeSiteNews) — The harms of transgenderism and gender ideology can no longer be ignored.
LifeSiteNews has published four separate reports on the harms of transgenderism, sourcing material from credible medical experts, social scientists, and “detransitioners.” The latter are gender-confused individuals who began to take drugs and/or underwent surgery to present as the opposite sex but have since stopped and regret their actions.
This series is meant to be a resource for confronting LGBT activists and helping gender-confused individuals realize the harms of chemical and surgical mutilations. This article is a summary of the findings, but LifeSiteNews will continue to expose the harms of transgenderism.
5 men and women harmed by ‘trans’ surgeries share their stories of regret, anxiety and depression
The first article featured 5 individuals who have been harmed by chemical and genital mutilation. The individuals were lied to by health care professionals into injecting themselves with testosterone and removing healthy organs. They were falsely that told they could change their gender, which is impossible.
Other individuals have come out and shared their own experiences of being lied to by medical professionals.
At least partially as a result of these stories, legislation in places such as Tennessee has sought to ban or limit these procedures.
Transgender drugs and surgeries are creating a public health crisis: medical experts
The second article focused on statements from American medical experts who studied this issue and concluded that “transitioning” of kids amounts to “child abuse” and is creating a “public health issue.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter, president of the American College of Pediatricians (not to be confused with the American Academy of Pediatricians), called puberty blockers “child abuse.”
“If you are interrupting [physical maturation] with clearly the intent of never having it go the direction that nature intended, with biological males ending up as adult males and biological females ending up as adult females, if you interrupt that, you are basically setting up a disease state,” Van Meter told LifeSiteNews in 2021. “And then on top of that, the purpose is clearly in the vast majority of kids that get on puberty blockers, they will not be allowed to go through their own natural puberty. They will be held back and then given cross-sex hormones.”
The linked article includes further expert commentary on the issue.
European medical officials warn against transgender drugs and surgeries for kids
It is not just American medical experts who have raised serious concerns about transgender drugs and surgeries for kids. Medical organizations and government entities also have concerns. European medical officials have raised concerns about transgender drugs and surgeries, in contradiction to a push by LGBT activists to groom kids to take puberty blockers and permanently sever their reproductive ability through transgender surgeries.
The third article explores several entities which have warned about the chemical and genital mutilation of kids. For example, the British National Institute for Health and Care Excellence concluded that studies cited to justify chemical interventions on gender-confused kids were not trustworthy but were still used to promote puberty blocking drugs. “The quality of evidence for these outcomes was assessed as very low certainty using [a] modified [evidence review].”
The French Academy of Medicine released a statement in 2022 that concluded that children should not be given puberty blockers.
“Great medical caution must be taken in children and adolescents, given the vulnerability, particularly psychological, of this population and the many undesirable effects, and even serious complications, that some of the available therapies can cause,” the medical group wrote. “In this respect, it is important to recall the recent decision (May 2021) of the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm to ban the use of hormone blockers.”
LGBT identification is largely driven by social media influence and peer pressure
The increase in LGBT identification is driven by social influence, according to credentialed experts studying the issue.
Self-identification as homosexual, transgender, and other apparent sexualities such as “gender fluid” are largely driven by social media, mainstream media, and peer influence, according to experts. The fourth article in this series explored that topic.
For example, Brown University’s Lisa Littman published a famous study on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, which linked increased identification of transgenderism to social pressures.
Littman’s research drew on other recognized studies on social and psychological disorders that had affirmed how peer groups can lead to others identifying with the same issues. “Peer contagion has been associated with depressive symptoms, disordered eating, aggression, bullying, and drug use,” she noted. However, by touching on such a politically sensitive topic, the former professor faced significant backlash.
Mental illness and LGBT identification also go hand-in-hand.
There is a strong link between mental illness and liberal political beliefs and LGBT identification, Birbeck College political scientist Eric Kaufmann concluded in a 2022 study. Kaufmann, who has degrees in political science and economics, released a report for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology [CSPI] that found bisexual sexual behavior did not rise at the same rate as identification as bisexual.
He argued this meant that peer pressure led to people saying they had a disordered sexual inclination without acting on it. “If this was about people feeling able to come out, then we should have seen these two trends rise together,” he told The College Fix. “What we find instead is that identity is rising much faster than behavior, indicating that people with occasional rather than sustained feelings of attraction to the opposite sex are increasingly identifying as LGBT.”
In an about face from the popular view that kids should identify as the gender they most feel like, the UK’s National Health Service is now warning that such feelings “may be a transient phase, particularly for pre-pubertal children.”
The NHS now cites “scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision making…and a lack of evidence to support families in making informed decisions about interventions that may have life-long consequences.”
The agency further maintains that healthcare providers shouldn’t be in a hurry to push children to identify as a different gender, contrary to the current concensus among many that children should be encouraged to integrate their new “identification” into every aspect of their life, including name and pronoun chamges.
Doctors and health care professionals are finally seeing the downside in juvenile “transitionsing”, a term used to describe a person who wants to change their gender through cosmetic, chemical and surgical means. Already, gender “clinics” have sprung up by the hundreds in the U.S with Planned Parenthood routinely prescribing hormone therapy to minors.
Many non-milinials are aware of the concept “tomboy”, which described a phase that young girls would go through when they wanted to engage in rough and tumble activities traditionally observed by boys. In the past, feminist applauded such behavior by females, maintaining that girls should not be limited. Now, however, the thrust in education is to coax students to consider any behaviors which are not traditional to their gender, to be possible proof that they belong in a different gender.
What was once a “phase” became dubbed and “identity” by those in favor of gender ideology, the belief that gender is chosen rather than biological. Many schools support gender ideology in the U.S. and the U.K.
“Just consider all of the young children, all of the young people whose lives have been irreversibly ruined by the NHS, like other health authorities across the western world, not taking this simple, sensible, adult and pragmatic approach years ago,” Douglas Murray, author ofThe Madness of Crowds: Gender Race and Identity, lamented.
Sixty-five percent of participants in a survey ‘believe the transgender movement has gone too far by encouraging underage minors to use drugs and surgery to transition to the opposite sex.’
LANSING, Michigan (LifeSiteNews) — A proposed amendment to the Michigan Constitution to enshrine a state-level right to abortion would also create a right to sterilize and potentially even transition minors without their parents’ knowledge or consent, warn legal experts and religious authorities in the Great Lakes State.
Michigan Proposal 3, the so-called Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative (RRFI), would enshrine a state constitutional right to “reproductive freedom,” defined as the “right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care.”
When the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in June’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that the U.S. Constitution “makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” it restored states’ ability to decide their own abortion laws. Pro-abortion activists hope to prevent state legislatures from doing so by establishing new “rights” to abortion in state constitutions.
Michigan is one of three states voting on such initiatives next month (other states are working to establish the opposite with pro-life initiatives). According to an analysis by the Great Lakes Justice Center (GLJC), as well as an article by former Michigan Solicitor General John Bursch published by the Michigan Catholic Conference, the implications reach far beyond the expansive text.
“Proposal 3 goes much farther than merely codifying Roe v. Wade, invalidating more than two dozen Michigan pro-life laws and authorizing minors to obtain abortions without a parent’s consent or even notice,” Bursch writes. And “because Proposal 3 grants this right to ‘every individual,’ without age limits, that means the proposal, on its face, authorizes a minor to obtain a sterilization without parental consent or even notice, such as when a minor desires to change his or her gender.”
GLJC notes that because the proposal does not define any of its terms, it “guarantees many new rights will be ‘created’ by activist courts […] [w]hat about gender-reassignment surgeries (i.e., the sterilization of men and women) and related medical care? The possibilities are unconstrained and endless.”
The group further warns that the amendment’s drafters “have deliberately crafted language which subverts and narrows” the “strict scrutiny analysis” test by which conflicts between statutes and constitutional language are adjudicated, “in a manner that will produce manifestly unjust results.”
“Under normal circumstances, a law prohibiting sexual conduct between adults and minors, for example, would be characterized as advancing the state’s interest in protecting minors from sexual exploitation and abuse by predatory adults,” GLJC explains. But the amendment declares that a state interest is only “compelling” if “it is for the limited purpose of protecting the health of an individual seeking care, consistent with accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine, and does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.”
This, GLJC warns, means that “all other legitimate and well-recognized compelling state interests such as the protection of minors, the protection of parental rights, as well as many others, will never be adequate to uphold a law if challenged under the RRFI.”
Proposal 3 and the other state abortion referendums will be among the first major tests of how public opinion will react to America’s new abortion status quo. A proposed amendment to clarify the Kansas Constitution does not protect abortion failed at the ballot in August, thanks in part to pervasive misinformation about the impact pro-life laws have on women facing medical emergencies.
Properly gauging public opinion on abortion has long been hobbled by inconsistently or inaccurately-framed poll questions, popular misconceptions about what abortion laws and rulings have and have not done, and discrepancies between what voters think of the issue and how they prioritize it. Ultimately, a more accurate read of the issue will likely not become clear until voters’ reactions to newly-enforced state laws start being reflected in elections.