~a column by GreeneCountyNewsOnline publisher Victoria Riley
In January we heard over and over again from Gov Kim Reynolds and her Republican followers that parents know what’s best for their children. “…every child is an individual who deserves an education tailored to their unique needs, and parents are in the best position to identify the right environment,” Reynolds said in her Condition of the State address.
After Reynolds got involved in Republican primaries, effectively winnowing out Republicans who didn’t agree with her School of Choice plan, the Statehouse very easily passed the bill that will cost Iowans close to $107 million in the first year alone, ballooning in cost after that.
“Parents know what’s best for their kids,” the Republicans crowed.
Apparently, what we missed was them muttering under their breaths, “except when they don’t.”
That’s the message from the Statehouse as the Senate passed Senate File 538, a bill that prohibits gender-affirming medical care for persons younger than age 18. An amendment to the bill that would have allowed it with parental consent was not approved.
What parents think is best for their child, regardless of the perhaps painful process they went through in deciding to seek gender-affirming care, doesn’t matter. Senator Jesse Green and Representative Carter Nordman, Republicans who represent Greene County at the capitol, know better than parents.
Green and Nordman both spoke against gender-affirming healthcare at a legislative forum in Jefferson Saturday.
According to Green, banning gender-affirming healthcare is similar to keeping young people from purchasing cigarettes, tobacco, tattoos, alcohol and lottery tickets. “There are some things that are just not healthy for a child’s growth…and to develop into healthy adults in society, and transitioning is one of those issues,” Green said.
Perhaps he thinks puberty blocking medications are available at Casey’s, conveniently placed between Pepsi and Sprite at the soda fountain. Would he be surprised to learn that only highly trained medical professionals who have taken an oath to do no harm are the ones prescribing those medications?
Nordman said the bill “is about protecting children.“ He referred to surgical transition as “mutilation.” Maybe he pictures the procedures being done by a meatcutter on his days off from a Smithfield production line. Again, only highly trained medical providers do transition procedures.
Regardless of misinformation the two men have accepted as truth, they’re ignoring something important. Medical providers can’t treat a minor, even for something as simple as a cold, without a parent’s permission. This new law is totally unnecessary if, as we heard in January, parents know what’s best for their children. If a parent thinks gender-affirming care is best for their child, they should have access to it, just like the parent who thinks a school that includes Bible studies as an academic subject is best for their child can now financially send the child there.
Neither Green nor Nordman are parents. They don’t know how difficult it is to watch a child struggle to find their place in the world or to feel good about themself. They don’t know how challenging it is to learn the assumptions you very naturally made about your child when they were born were incorrect, and their future will be different than how you pictured it. Helping a gender-questioning child or adolescent calls upon parents to consider many things, all of which help to form the best decision for their child.
The state doesn’t need to be part of it. Parents know what’s best for their children. (At least they did in January.)
If the Republicans’ intention really is to protect kids, as Nordman said Saturday, let’s talk about common sense gun control. Gender-affirming care doesn’t kill kids. Guns do.
