Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, R-Ark., fumed over a federal judge "pushing a political agenda at the expense of our kids" after he blocked her ban on controversial sex change treatments for children.
Judge James M. Moody Jr., a senior district judge appointed by former President Obama, recently struck down the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act, legislation banning life altering sex change treatments for children.
"This is not ‘care’– it’s activists pushing a political agenda at the expense of our kids and subjecting them to permanent and harmful procedures," Sanders said in a statement. "Only in the far-Left’s woke vision of America is it not appropriate to protect children."
Despite efforts to block the bans on minors receiving life altering treatments in Arkansas, Sanders is already working to reverse the ruling.
"We will fight this and the Attorney General plans to appeal Judge Moody’s decision to the Eighth Circuit," the governor said Tuesday.
GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE COMES OUT AGAINST BANS ON SEX CHANGE TREATMENTS FOR MINORS
The judge claimed that allowing kids who think they are transgender access to puberty blockers and cross-hormone therapy "improves the mental health and well-being of patients."
"Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that, by prohibiting it, the State undermined the interests it claims to be advancing," Moody Jr. wrote in the 80-page ruling.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin vowed to appeal Moody's ruling to the Eighth Circuit on the basis that "there is no scientific evidence that any child will benefit from these procedures."
"I am disappointed in the decision that prevents our state from protecting our children against dangerous medical experimentation under the moniker of ‘gender transition,'" Griffin said in a press release Tuesday.
"Unfortunately, Judge Moody misses what is widely understood across the United States and in the United Kingdom and European countries: There is no scientific evidence that any child will benefit from these procedures, while the consequences are harmful and often permanent," the attorney general continued.
Griffin assured that despite the roadblocks, he would "continue fighting as long as it takes to stop providers from sterilizing children."
The SAFE Act prohibited individuals under 18 from receiving gender transition procedures, listing out the "serious known risks" of cross-sex hormones that include an increased risk of breast and uterine cancers, irreversible infertility, and heart attacks.
The bill, which Moody seeks to block, ultimately concluded that "the risks of gender transition procedures far outweigh any 11 benefit at this stage of clinical study on these procedures."
