These laws are poor public policy, as they create a significant conflict between physicians’ adherence to the law and adherence to their professional code of ethics and civil law tort duty not to commit medical malpractice. The traditional standard of care with regard to medical malpractice requires that “medical care for a given patient and health care provider is the quality of care that would be provided to any patient in a similar clinical situation, by the average provider in a similar location.”30 In some specific cases, adolescent GAC treatment, including surgery, may be necessary in order for a physician to practice in line with the legal standard of care (thus avoiding malpractice) and also to satisfy their professional ethical duty to offer safe and effective medical care that promotes the patient’s well-being.31
As Kraschel et al explain: “these statutes would transform their [physicians’] fiduciary duty into a criminal act.”10 Similarly, Lepore et al argue that the laws are untenable, as they “require that health care workers act against current evidence-based guidelines” such that they are legally mandated to violate their duty to “do no harm.”32 The same tension between professional and legal obligations is observed in new abortion laws being enforced post-Roe v Wade, wherein the professional ethical duties of physicians are put in direct conflict with criminal law, forcing physicians to choose between upholding their ethical duties or violating the law.33 Hence, these new laws prohibiting GAC treatment for minors (including gender-affirming surgery) center on the government’s unwillingness to let the medical profession self-regulate—via oversight from state medical boards—or allow civil tort law to regulate physician practice as it does in most other cases.
Criminalizing gender affirming care for minors, including surgery, is both outside the mainstream opinion of medical professionals, as well as extremely wrong from a moral and ethical standpoint. Those in the thread trying to argue that Biden is adopting a "moderate" position with this couldn't be further from the truth. His stance is harmful and extreme.
Meanwhile, actual medical professionals: https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/whats-wrong-criminalizing-gender-affirming-care-transgender-adolescents/2023-06
Criminalizing gender affirming care for minors, including surgery, is both outside the mainstream opinion of medical professionals, as well as extremely wrong from a moral and ethical standpoint. Those in the thread trying to argue that Biden is adopting a "moderate" position with this couldn't be further from the truth. His stance is harmful and extreme.