Obama’s Affordable Care Act prohibits health care providers from denying gender affirming medical treatment;
Tennessee governor calls for probe into university’s youth trans clinic after viral video.
Numerous videos were obtained by The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, including one showing a medical ethicist at Vanderbilt warning doctors who may hold “conscientious objections” about such surgeries to go study medicine somewhere else.
“The ‘pediatric transgender clinic’ at Vanderbilt University Medical Center raises serious moral, ethical and legal concerns,” Lee told The Daily Wire in a statement. “We should not allow permanent, life-altering decisions that hurt children or policies that suppress religious liberties, all for the purpose of financial gain. We have to protect Tennessee children, and this warrants a thorough investigation.”
However, Vanderbilt’s University Medical Center contends the video investigation released by Walsh “misrepresent[s] facts about the care the Medical Center provides to transgender patients.”
“VUMC began its Transgender Health Clinic because transgender individuals are a high-risk population for mental and physical health issues and have been consistently underserved by the U.S. health system. We have been and will continue to be committed to providing family-centered care to all adolescents in compliance with state law and in line with professional practice standards and guidance established by medical specialty societies,”
The National Desk was told in a statement. “VUMC requires parental consent to treat a minor patient who is to be seen for issues related to transgender care and never refuses parental involvement in the care of transgender youth who are under age 18.”
The statement also added that the University Medical Center’s policies allow employees to decline to provide care they find “morally objectionable” due to either personal or religious beliefs, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of these decisions.
“The disturbing news revealed by Matt Walsh is a disgrace to the great state of Tennessee and a direct threat to our vulnerable children. I support Gov. Bill Lee’s investigation into an institution that’s admittedly profiting from mutilating children,” tweeted Tennessee GOP congresswoman Diana Harshbarger.
“Congress must act NOW to pass the Protecting Our Children’s Innocence Act to ensure irreversible atrocities like this never hurt our children again.”
