by Rodney Pelletier
This article, which quotes Dr. Morse, was posted at ChurchMilitant.com on December 4, 2020.
LONDON – So-called transgender children must get a court order for puberty blockers, according to a new British judicial ruling.
On Tuesday, a three-judge panel on the U.K. High Court called into question “whether a child under 16 or a young person between 16 and 18 can give the requisite consent” for puberty-suppressing drugs and directed that children
must obtain a court order.
The court determined the U.K.’s National Health Service does not go far enough to establish whether a child seeking to transition understands the:
- Immediate consequences of the treatment in physical and psychological terms
- Fact that the vast majority of patients taking puberty blockers go on to cross-sex hormones — a pathway to much greater medical interventions
- Relationship between taking cross-sex hormones and subsequent surgery, as well as the implications of such surgery
- Possibility that cross-sex hormones may lead to loss of fertility
- Impact of cross-sex hormones on sexual function
- Highly uncertain evidence base for this treatment
Keira Bell, one of two claimants in the case, was given puberty-blocking drugs at 16 years old and underwent a double mastectomy at 20. Now at 23, she’s
regretting her so-called transition.
She told a group of reporters outside
the court, “I wish (the judgment) had been made before I embarked on the devastating experiment of puberty blockers. My life would be very different
today.”
Founder and president of the pro-family organization the Ruth Institute, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, commented to Church Militant:
I applaud Keira Bell for her courage and persistence in making her case. Her (mis)treatment by the medical establishment is truly tragic. This ruling
by a U.K. High Court makes it less likely that young people will be railroaded into irreversible treatments that harm rather than help them. I
hope this ruling will have ripple effects on this side of the pond as well.
The lawyer for the other claimant, the mother of a 15-year-old girl with autism, testified: “A child still going through puberty is not capable of properly understanding the nature and effect of (puberty blockers) and weighing the consequences
and side effects properly.”
