WoLF Applauds the Passage of House Bill 675 In Idaho, Protecting Vulnerable Youth
WoLF supports a bill passed in the Idaho House, which attempts to end the for-profit practice of childhood genital mutilation in Idaho.
In what should be seen as a victory for youth in Idaho, the Idaho House recently passed House Bill 675 (HB 675), which offers significant protections for Idaho’s youth against the damaging practices of genital mutilation, alteration, and sterilization of minors – medical practices urged and supported by many gender ideology advocates and medical practitioners.
HB 675, sponsored by the State Affairs Committee, and co-sponsored by Senator Steve Vick and Representatives Vito Barbieri, Brent Crane, and Marco Erickson, seeks to assign liability to medical professionals who choose to perform operations which alter the sex-based characteristics of children.
Unlike some other bills of the same type, HB 675 is calling for criminalizing – as a felony – the genital mutilation of a minor.
The bill amends section 18-1506B of the Idaho Code, to “provide for the crime of genital mutilation in certain instances, to provide certain exemptions, and to provide severability; and declaring an emergency and providing an effective date.” The bill includes very clear language stating that “[E]xcept as provided in subsection(45) of this section, whoever knowingly gives permission for, or permits on a child, any act prohibited by 35subsection(1) of this section shall be guilty of a felony.”
WoLF has previously made public statements supporting legislation to prevent children from being subject to cosmetic medical experimentation. Dr. Mahri Irvine, WoLF’s Executive Director, submitted written testimony in support of Tennessee’s HB 2835 and SB 2696, two bills that would enact the “Youth Health Protection Act.” These bills provide a mechanism to protect children from unnecessary, life-altering, and permanent medical interventions that are frequently promoted by gender ideology activists. WoLF has also stood up for the protection of children in Ohio’s Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, for which WoLF provided written testimony.
Like the Tennessee and Ohio legislation, Idaho’s bill places the burden of responsibility for injury on the doctors who perform these “transition” surgeries or procedures, as well as the health insurance companies who cover them. But in Idaho’s case, performing these surgeries would also be considered a felonious act.
The bill lays out which types of surgeries would be against the law to perform:
“Surgeries that sterilize or mutilate, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty, clitoroplasty, vaginoplasty, vulvoplasty, ovariectomy, or the implantation of erection or testicular prostheses; reconstruction of the fixed part of the urethra with or without metoidioplasty, phalloplasty, scrotoplasty; performing a mastectomy; administering or supplying the following medications that induce profound morphologic changes in the genitals of a child or induce transient or permanent infertility: Puberty-blocking medication to stop or delay normal puberty; supraphysiological doses of testosterone to a female; or supraphysiological doses of estrogen to a male; or removing any otherwise healthy or nondiseased body part or tissue. Female clitoral and labial mutilation and mastectomies, and includes damage resulting from sexual organ development due to the administration of puberty blockers.”
WoLF supports the victims of medical intervention and opposes the sexual mutilation of children. These types of medical interventions are often supported by unsuspecting members of the public who have been psychologically conditioned by gender ideologists to believe that children need surgery to stop suicidal ideation or to feel ‘at home’ in their own bodies. WoLF fully rejects the notion that surgical interventions, including permanent sterilization, are a viable solution to helping psychologically vulnerable children.
It is laudable that legislators in Idaho and other states have stepped up to the challenge to protect children who are often influenced by peer and institutional pressure to believe they are born in the wrong bodies and that surgery and drugs are the only solutions to help them feel comfortable with their bodies.
At the present time, there is no companion bill for HB675 up for a vote in the senate. WoLF hopes that Idaho senators will step up to the plate to champion these protections for children. WoLF recognizes the need for children to be protected against monied interests’ influence on the institutions that push for or provide these unnecessary ‘services.’ Helpful legislation such as HB675 makes bold steps toward that goal.