“This is just to prevent bad actors from coming in and taking our children to go somewhere else without that child’s parent or guardian giving them permission to do that,” said Rep. Bryan Richey, R-Maryville.
State Rep. William Lamberth, R-Portland, said he doesn’t consider the bill controversial.
“This bill is the same as any other medical procedure. I mean, as a parent I can’t fathom if someone else without me and my wife’s permission or even knowledge took one of our children to another state or even within this state for any kind of medical procedure. That’s just bizarre to me, that anybody would advocate for that. A parent should be intimately involved in their child’s medical decisions and care,” Lamberth said.
But Lamberth also made a substantive argument against gender transitioning, which opponents say does permanent harm by rendering the body sterile and doesn’t solve underlying emotional problems they say people who identify as transgender experience.
“There is a growing body of medical research that supports the fact that surgical intervention in a child that is suffering from gender dysphoria is more damaging than helpful,” Lamberth said. “… I’m asking folks to, again, study the medical testimony that’s out there, look into this very carefully before you go through with something or anyone would go through with something that is irreversible.”
In April, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a document rejecting attempted sex changes, saying that identity comes from God, who gives human beings dignity, and that “the body participates in that dignity as it is endowed with personal meanings, particularly in its sexed condition.”
“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” states the document, Dignitas Infinita, which was approved by Pope Francis.
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