In a slap at a federal district court that blocked Idaho’s law banning doctors from pumping puberty-blocking drugs and hormone treatments into children, the Supreme Court on Monday said that law can take effect even as a court battle continues over its constitutionality.
The decision included a concurrence by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas; another by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who was joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett; and a dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Elena Kagan noted a dissent. Chief Justice John Roberts made no comments.
Although the subject of the law was medical interference with the sex a boy or girl was born with, much of the opinions focused on the injunction granted by U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill that blocked the law.
“The district court issued this sweeping relief even though, by its own admission, the plaintiffs had failed to ‘engage’ with other provisions of Idaho’s law that don’t presently affect them — including the law’s provisions prohibiting the surgical removal of children’s genitals. Id., at 52. In choosing such an extraordinary remedy, the district court clearly strayed from equity’s traditional bounds,” Gorsuch wrote in his concurrence.
Trans activists are having a complete meltdown over the Supreme Court ruling that Idaho can ban minors from being subjected to so-called gender affirming care. A major win for sanity. Save the children! pic.twitter.com/vo4P1q7dpe
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 15, 2024
“The district court purported to bar the State from bringing into effect portions of a statute that no party has shown, and no court has held, likely offensive to federal law,” he wrote.
He wrote that the Idaho case “poses a question about the propriety of universal injunctive relief — a question of great significance that has been in need of the Court’s attention for some time.”
In its reporting, The New York Times noted that the opinions did not discuss transgender treatments, but universal injunctions.
Should more states enact a law like this?
“Universal injunctions are when a single judge issues a sweeping decision that applies beyond those directly involved in the dispute. Some justices have signaled an interest in looking at the tactic,” the Times wrote.
Although that was the legal battle behind the scenes, the ruling allows Idaho to move ahead with the law with the exception of the two minors who sued.
Under the law, treatments that are “inconsistent with the child’s biological sex,” such as puberty blockers, hormones and mastectomies, can slap a medical professional with a jail sentence of up to 10 years, according to Reuters.
“The state has a duty to protect and support all children, and that’s why I’m proud to defend Idaho’s law that ensures children are not subjected to these life-altering drugs and procedures,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said after the ruling.
TODAY: The US Supreme Court Allows Idaho to Ban Transgender Care for Minors 🙌
This sets a MAJOR Precedent for all 50 states to do the same.
• This law now criminalizes gender-affirming care [mutilation] on minors on Idaho.
• “Healthcare” workers now face up to
10 years in… pic.twitter.com/FJ0Ggt26xX— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) April 15, 2024
In seeking the court’s action to overturn the injunction, Labrador had pushed the judicial hot button of an injunction being granted that went far beyond the case at hand.
“The plaintiffs are two minors and their parents, and the injunction covers two million,” he wrote, according to the Times.
Putting the law on hold was “leaving vulnerable children subject to procedures that even plaintiffs’ experts agree are inappropriate for some of them,” he wrote.
