A legislative committee break up alongside get together traces on Thursday over a proposed “defend legislation” to guard well being care professionals who supply gender-affirming care to transgender people.
Maine already has a legislation defending medical professionals who present abortions to ladies from states the place abortions are banned or entry is restricted. The invoice that was endorsed by a majority of committee members on Thursday would strengthen and increase these protections to suppliers who supply gender-affirming care to transgender people.
The vote within the Well being Protection, Insurance coverage and Monetary Providers Committee was 8-4, with all Democrats supporting the measure and all Republicans opposed. The measure now goes to the total Home and Senate for consideration.
Beneath the invoice, LD 227, hospitals and docs wouldn’t must adjust to calls for for data on sufferers from states the place entry to care is restricted. Greater than a dozen different states have so-called defend legal guidelines for gender-affirming care whereas at the very least 17 have such legal guidelines to guard abortion suppliers.
A lot of these legal guidelines have been enacted because the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, successfully handing regulation of abortion again to the states. The tradition struggle over abortion has since expanded to gender-affirming care, which may embody hormone remedy, surgical procedure and different sorts of care.
“I want we weren’t on this state of affairs in the USA,” Democratic state Rep. Anne Perry of Calais, the invoice’s sponsor, stated previous to Thursday’s committee vote. “I’d be a lot happier if this was one thing that I felt we didn’t have to do, fairly truthfully. However I introduced this ahead in good religion. And I positively shall be supporting this invoice.”
However Republicans urged that the invoice might violate the rights of oldsters of transgender kids or encourage kidnapping and trafficking of minors throughout state traces. Invoice supporters responded that the measure wouldn’t change any legal guidelines associated to oldsters’ rights in Maine or legal guidelines permitting the prosecution of criminal activity, akin to kidnapping.
Republicans additionally raised issues about harming the connection between legislation enforcement businesses in Maine and different states. They usually accused Democrats of an absence of transparency as a result of the textual content of the invoice was launched solely days earlier than the general public listening to.
“I believe this complete course of is shameful,” stated Rep. Joshua Morris, R-Turner, who was one of many 4 votes towards the invoice.
Final week, the proposal drew nationwide consideration after the attorneys normal from 16 states despatched a letter threatening authorized motion if Maine enacts the invoice. All the attorneys normal signify states which have restricted entry to abortion or gender-affirming care.
Of their letter to Maine Lawyer Common Aaron Frey, Gov. Janet Mills and Democratic legislative leaders, the attorneys normal portrayed the invoice as an try and bully officers in different states. The group took explicit situation with language that might permit well being care suppliers in Maine to counter-sue states that go after them for offering gender-affirming care.
“In America, we’ve the appropriate to disagree,” the group wrote. “Maine has each proper to resolve what Maine’s legal guidelines are and the way these legal guidelines must be enforced. However that very same proper applies to each state. One state can’t management one other. The totalitarian impulse to stifle dissent and oppress dissenters has no place in our shared America.”
Frey responded a day later by calling the issues raised by his counterparts “meritless.” He additionally accused the opposite attorneys normal of trying to intimidate supporters of the invoice in Maine.
“We do have a proper to disagree and I absolutely concur that one state can’t management one other,” Frey wrote to Tennessee Lawyer Common Jonathan Skrmetti. “Recognizing these shared values, I welcome your respect for Maine’s capability to resolve what entry to well being care individuals in Maine obtain, free from interference by out-of-state actors.”
This text seems via a media partnership with Maine Public.
