Court Upholds Oklahoma’s Medical Mutilation Ban for Minors

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TULSA, OK – Last week, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that Oklahoma can enforce its new law protecting minors from puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and medical mutilating surgeries. While the law was signed last May, it was immediately challenged by five families with gender-confused adolescents and the Oklahoma attorney general voluntarily agreed not to enforce it pending whether the judge upheld or blocked the law. Now that the judge has upheld the law, the attorney general has stated the state will now enforce the law.

Senate Bill 613, which passed overwhelmingly in both the state’s legislative chambers, makes it a felony for health care providers to conduct these procedures on patients under the age of 18.

In his ruling, District Judge John Frederick Heil III stated that the U.S. Constitution and current law do not provide an “affirmative right” to specific medical treatments. With the magnitude of risks involved with such procedures, Judge Heil noted that Oklahoma’s “exercise of caution” in banning them was warranted due to the state’s interest in protecting children, public health, and integrity of the medical profession.