California Democrats want to protect the privacy of doctor-patient relationships — except when they don’t.
The State of California has sued a private hospital, Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego, because it chose to stop providing “gender-affirming care” to children under 18.
Attorney General Rod Bonta declared last week that he wanted to “ensure Californians can access gender-affirming care without facing unfair roadblocks.” “Californians,” i.e. children.
Notably, California is a “sanctuary state” for children from other states seeking “gender-affirming care” — thanks to a 2022 law introduced by San Francisco Democrat Scott Wiener and signed by Governor Gavin Newsom — so we aren’t just talking about “Californians.”
The hospital had every right to stop providing what is a highly controversial set of treatments, some of which involve irreversible changes to children’s bodies that patients may regret when they reach the age of legal maturity.
Just last week, a “detransitioner” who regretted a double mastectomy that was performed on her when she was a teenager won a $2 million judgment against the doctors who carried out the surgery.
The medical literature on these treatments is mixed at best, and a growing number of foreign countries are restricting some of them. So, too, is the Trump administration — which is why Rady’s dropped them, to avoid a fight, and to focus on actual pediatric care.
But California’s leaders, who also think parents should not have the right to know if their children tell their schools they want to start a gender “transition,” think doctors should be forced to provide puberty-blocking drugs or amputate children’s body parts that indicate biological sex.
The privacy of doctors and patients, sacrosanct when it comes to abortion, went out the window during the coronavirus pandemic — and Bonta has cast it aside again.
Bonta has forced the hospital into an impossible position. On the one hand, it could be shut down if it does not follow federal regulations — which in this instance are closer to science than California’s bizarre ideological dictates.
On the other hand, the hospital now has to defend a lawsuit against the State of California.
Bonta wants to force the hospital to fight the federal government on behalf of an unscientific, unethical, and unpopular California policy.
Why not just let the politicians argue, and leave the kids — and the pediatricians — alone?
The post Leave the kids and their doctors alone appeared first on New York Post.
