Kansas Governor Laura Kelly (D) vetoed a account that would have banned gender-affirming care for minors in the Sunflower State on Friday.
“This divisive legislation targets a small group of Kansans, imposing government mandates on them and dictating to parents how best to raise and care for their children,” Kelly he said in a veto message on Friday. “I don’t believe it’s a conservative value, and it’s certainly not a Kansas value.”
Kelly said the legislation “tramples on parental rights” and that “the last place I would want to be as a politician is between a parent and a child who needs any kind of medical care.”
“And yet, that is exactly what this legislation does,” she continued.
The legislation, a replacement bill for Senate Bill 233, would have banned gender-affirming care practices such as surgeries and hormone treatments for those under 18 in Kansas. Kelly vetoed similar legislation last year, which Republicans failed to overturn.
Cathryn Oakley, senior director of legal policy at the LGBTQ rights group Human Rights Campaign, praised Kelly’s veto in a statement released to the press. She said the group continues “to thank Governor Kelly for seeing bills like SB 233 for what they are: dangerous misinformation and attempts to target vulnerable young people for the sole purpose of angering anti-LGBTQ+ extremists.”
“If any legislation seeks to prohibit best practice, medically necessary health care for no purpose other than the person receiving that care being transgender, that is discrimination – plain and simple,” Oakley said. “Doctors, patients and families – not politicians – should be making decisions about health care.”
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