South Carolina Senate Passes ‘Help, Not Harm’ Bill

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The South Carolina Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill this week that would prohibit sex change procedures for minors – positioning South Carolina to become the 25th state in the country to ban these “experimental, life-altering gender-transition procedures.”

The legislation previously cleared the S.C. House by an overwhelming margin – and should that chamber concur with the Senate’s version of the bill, it would head to the desk of governor Henry McMaster.

“Children must be left to experience childhood undeterred by the predations of radical gender ideology,” said state senator Danny Verdin, chairman of the Senate’s medical affairs committee.

The legislation would further prevent government-run schools in the Palmetto State – which are driving this ideology – from keeping parents “in the dark” about the status of their children as it relates to these issues.

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Not surprisingly, the left-leaning mainstream media assailed the bill as an attack on “gender transition health care” or “gender affirming care.” According to these outlets, minors should have the right to make irreversible decisions about their genders – without parental consent – and make taxpayers subsidize those choices.

The bill (H. 4624) would prohibit any “physician, mental health provider or other health care professional” from providing “gender transition procedures” to minors – including sex change surgeries and the use of puberty blocking drugs and hormones.

“A physician who knowingly performs genital gender reassignment surgery in violation of this chapter is guilty of inflicting great bodily injury upon a child,” the legislation stated.

The proposed law would also prohibit the S.C. Department of Health and Human Services (SCDHHS) – the Palmetto State’s Medicaid agency – from reimbursing or providing coverage for such procedures. 

“Public funds may not be used directly or indirectly for gender transition procedures,” the bill noted.

Finally, the legislation would impose an affirmative obligation on staff at government-run schools in South Carolina to notify parents in the event children assert that their gender is “inconsistent” with their sex – and to refrain from “encouraging or coercing” children to keep such revelations a secret.

Twenty-seven Republicans and one Democrat voted for the bill. Seven Democrats and one independent voted against it. Several Democrats who were present in the chamber during the debate – and who voted on proposed amendments to the legislation – did not vote.

Here is the final roll call …

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This media outlet strongly supports the Senate-modified version of H. 4624. We would encourage the House to adopt it – and the governor to sign it – without delay. These procedures constitute child abuse, plain and simple, and they should be outlawed.

Frankly, the fact that a new statute must be passed memorializing the fact that these procedures constitute child abuse is disappointing … we should all intuitively know and accept this truth as a society.

As I have often noted, adults who decide to indulge their mental illness are free to do so – and to butcher and poison their bodies as they see fit. We are not obligated as a culture to respect those choices, however, and we certainly are not obligated as taxpayers to subsidize them.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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