Latest news with #FourteenthAmendment
American Military News
a day ago
- Health
- American Military News
Supreme Court upholds child sex change ban in Tennessee
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law on Wednesday that bans sex changes for minors in the state, ruling that the prohibition on 'certain medical treatments for transgender minors' is not discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment. In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court said, 'Tennessee's law prohibiting certain medical treatments for transgender minors is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and satisfies rational basis review.' According to Fox News, the case, 'United States v. Skrmetti,' was originally brought against Tennessee's Senate Bill 1, which bans 'all medical treatments intended to allow 'a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex' or to treat 'purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity.'' Tennessee's Senate Bill 1 prevents healthcare providers from performing sex change procedures for minors with gender dysphoria and from using hormone and puberty blocker treatments to allow minors to transition to a different sex. READ MORE: Supreme Court allows AR-15, high-capacity magazine bans to continue In the Supreme Court's majority opinion on Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, 'This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field. The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound.' 'The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements. Nor does it afford us license to decide them as we see best,' Roberts added. 'Our role is not 'to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic' of the law before us, Beach Communications, 508 U. S., at 313, but only to ensure that it does not violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.' Following the Supreme Court's ruling on Wednesday, conservative political commentator Matt Walsh released a statement saying that he was 'grateful' to be a part of a 'truly historic victory' after years of fighting against child sex change procedures. 'Three years ago, we launched our investigation into Vanderbilt's child mutilation practices. We rallied in the state capital. Our lawmakers responded with a law banning child mutilation in the state,' Walsh tweeted. 'Today the Supreme Court upheld our law, which means child mutilation can be banned anywhere and everywhere in the country. And should be.'
New York Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Supreme Court upholds Tennessee ban on transgender surgeries for minors
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Tennessee's ban on transgender surgeries for minors in a 6–3 decision, concluding that such policies are best decided by the states. Chief Justice John Roberts authored the majority opinion alongside his five fellow conservative justices, which held that Tennessee's law doesn't violate the Equal Protection Clause. The three liberal justices dissented. The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington. REUTERS Advertisement 'This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field,' Roberts reflected in the majority opinion. 'Our role…is only to ensure that it does not violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment,' he went on. 'Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.'
CBS News
2 days ago
- Health
- CBS News
Supreme Court upholds Tennessee law restricting gender-affirming care for transgender minors
Washington — The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Tennessee law that restricts access to gender-affirming care for minors experiencing gender dysphoria, clearing the way for the medical treatments for transgender youth to be limited in half of the country. The high court ruled 6-3 in rejecting the challenge from the Biden administration, three families and a physician who had argued that Tennessee's law violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law. The court concluded that the state's measure, enacted in 2023, does not run afoul of the 14th Amendment. "Our role is not 'to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic' of the law before us, but only to ensure that it does not violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. The court's majority found that Tennessee's law is not subject to a heightened level of judicial and satisfies the most deferential standard, known as rational basis. The three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, were in dissent. Sotomayor read her dissent from the bench. The Tennessee law Tennessee's law prohibits medical treatments like puberty blockers or hormone therapy for transgender adolescents under the age of 18. The state is one of 25 with laws that seek to restrict access to gender-affirming care for young people diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The case, U.S. v. Skrmetti, marked the first in which the Supreme Court stepped into the politically charged debate over health care for transgender youth. In addition to the state prohibitions, President Trump has issued executive orders that address what he calls "gender ideology." One declares that it is the federal government's policy to recognize "two sexes, male and the female," and the second threatens federal funding for medical institutions that offer gender-affirming care to young people under the age of 18. Mr. Trump's proposals are being challenged in the federal courts. Known as SB1, Tennessee's law prevents health care providers from administering puberty blockers or hormone therapy if they're meant to enable "a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex." The state had argued that it has a "compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex, particularly as they undergo puberty," and in barring treatments that "might encourage minors to become disdainful of their sex." Shortly before the law took effect, three families with transgender children and a physician who provides the treatments to patients with gender dysphoria challenged the ban in federal court, arguing it is unconstitutional. The Biden administration then intervened in the case. A federal district court blocked the law, finding that it discriminates based on sex and transgender status. A divided panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit then reversed that decision and allowed Tennessee's ban to take effect while legal proceedings continued. The appeals court evaluated the law under rational-basis review, the most deferential of the tiers of judicial scrutiny. But the Biden administration and the families had argued Tennessee's ban should be subject to a more stringent level of review, known as heightened scrutiny, because it draws lines based on sex and discriminates based on transgender status. But Tennessee had argued that the state aims to protect young people from the consequences of the medical treatments, which it said are risky and unproven. The state said it was setting age- and use-based limits on medical care and exercising its authority to regulate medicine. Access to gender-affirming care has become a flashpoint in the culture wars, as half of the states have in recent years enacted laws that limit the availability of the medical interventions. Many of those same states have also enacted measures prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in women's sports.
3 days ago
- Politics
Ohio lawmakers to introduce bill banning abortion, criminalizing the procedure
Republican lawmakers in Ohio are planning on introducing a bill on Wednesday that would ban almost all abortions and criminalize the procedure. The " Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act" would overturn the amendment to the Ohio constitution, voted on in 2023, that establishes "an individual right to one's own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion" before viability. Reproductive medical treatment includes contraception, fertility treatments and miscarriage care. Abortions are currently allowed up to 20 weeks since fertilization, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that studies sexual and reproductive rights. "[It] is a very, very simple and beautiful piece of legislation in that all it does is identify all human beings as persons deserving equal protection of the law, both born humans and pre-born humans," anti-abortion advocate Austin Beigel, with End Abortion Ohio, told ABC News. "So, it identifies those personhood rights starting at the moment of fertilization, when the new distinct organism is formed, the new human life that being that person now has equal protection under the law." Kellie Copeland, executive director of Abortion Forward, which helped pass the 2023 amendment in Ohio, said the bill goes against the will of voters. "This is the most extreme and anti-life legislation that you can imagine," she told ABC News. "It would strip Ohioans of their constitutionally guaranteed right to bodily autonomy, and that's the goal of this legislation." When Beigel was asked if he was concerned that the bill may go against the will of the voters, he said he was not because "the will of the voters was evil." "In many times in our country's history, the majority of people have desired evil things. We have discriminated horribly against the Black man and woman, and people wanted that," he continued. "So, I have no qualms about saying I oppose the majority of the will of the people when the people desire something that is evil." Copeland replied that "subjecting people to the loss of bodily autonomy, taking basic human rights away from Ohioans is the real evil that we're talking about here." Beigel said he has been working with Republican state Reps. Levi Dean and Jonathan Newman on the bill, which uses the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause -- part of the Fourteenth Amendment -- to override Ohio's constitutional amendment. Beigel said the co-sponsors will be announced on Wednesday. Dean's and Newman's offices did not immediately return ABC News' request for comment. The bill would ban abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest. The only exceptions would be for a spontaneous miscarriage or to save the life of the pregnant woman. The bill would also criminalize those who have abortions, not just the providers who perform the procedure. Copeland she is worried the bill could lead to attacks on people who support abortion rights or who underwent abortions. "When people equate reproductive health care with murder, that kind of rhetoric invites violence," Copeland said. "It invites violence that we have seen at abortion clinics that we have seen perpetrated against abortion providers." Beigel said the bill does not outlaw contraception and is not designed to outlaw in-vitro fertilization (IVF). However, he did say that IVF may not be able to function the way that it does now if the bill is passed because it would apply equal protection to "pre-born humans." "The courts are going to have to debate the implications of this," he said. "Is it actually moral to freeze a young human being in a cryochamber and preserve them at the age they are and not let them grow?" Ohio's history of abortion bills In 2019, Ohio lawmakers passed a so-called heartbeat bill that bans abortions after cardiac activity can be detected, which occurs as early as six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they're pregnant. It was signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine. The ban had no exceptions for rape or incest. The only exceptions were cases of ectopic pregnancies and to prevent the mother's death or impairment of a major bodily function. A federal judge blocked the ban in 2019, but it was reinstated just hours after the Supreme Court decision to overrule Roe v. Wade. In September 2022, an Ohio lower court granted a temporary restraining order before granting a preliminary injunction a few weeks later. In December 2023, the state's Supreme Court dismissed the state's appeal and sent the case back to the lower courts. In November 2023, 57% of voters approved the passing of the amendment, adding abortion protections to the state constitution. Much of the six-week ban was rendered unconstitutional after the amendment went into effect in December 2023, Ohio's Attorney General Dave Yost said earlier this year. However, some lawmakers have tried to maintain other parts of the ban, including reporting requirements and a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion can be administered. An Ohio judge in August 2024.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Mississippi prisoner Richard Jordan takes to YouTube to plead for clemency before execution
In an effort to seek clemency for convicted murderer Richard Gerald Jordan, the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel released a video in which Jordan shares his story and asks the state not to execute him. The 79-year-old is scheduled to be executed on June 25. The U.S. Supreme Court will discuss on June 18 whether to grant Jordan an emergency stay of execution, and the Mississippi Southern District of U.S. District Court is expected to rule on whether to halt the execution at least temporarily as the court considers Jordan's objections to the state's three-drug method. Jordan has been on death row in Mississippi since 1977 for the kidnapping and murder of Edwina Marter, a Gulfport bank executive's wife. He also tried to collect a ransom after Marter was already dead. In the video, Jordan talks about his childhood and military service, saying he was a model citizen until he returned from Vietnam after serving three tours there during the war. He believes and experts shared in the video that Jordan likely suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in Vietnam at the time he killed Marter. Jordan's brother Houston Jordan and sister Nordeen Jones talk about their older brother "Gerald" as a kind person and a role model for his younger siblings. The Jordans, they said, were a God-fearing family and spent a lot of time at church. "From the time we were small up, we went to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night," Houston Jordan said. "We were quite active in the church." Others, including former schoolmates, ministers and a retired corrections officer, talk about Richard Jordan's willingness to help others. In the video, Richard Jordan is not asking the state to set him free. He admits his crime was wrong and has apologized for what he did. He is asking the state to commute his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jordan's attorneys said at a hearing held Saturday at the Thad Cochran Federal Courthouse in Jackson that the state's preferred method of execution is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment, which is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Jordan also contends the execution method violates the Fourteenth Amendment, which speaks to due process and equal protection under the law. U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate asked the state and Jordan if they would be amenable to halting the execution if Jordan is deemed conscious after the first drug is administered and before the second has begun so the federal court could decide what should happen next, since it is not clear in Mississippi code what should happen if the first drug, a sedative, fails. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch replied on Monday that there is a protocol. If the first consciousness test fails, Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain can restart the process. If it fails a second time, the process would be halted until the state could decide what to do next. Wingate has not yet ruled on the matter. Lici Beveridge is a reporter for the Hattiesburg American and Clarion Ledger. Contact her at lbeveridge@ Follow her on X @licibev or Facebook at This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Richard Jordan pleads for clemency ahead of execution in Mississippi
