Tennessee and Louisiana are proving that Do No Harm Action’s issue priorities can make red-state legislatures stand up and cheer.
Last month, the Tennessee General Assembly passed SB2031/HB1872, legislation permitting physicians and other healthcare professionals to be sued for coercing patients into receiving so-called gender-affirming care. The bill was signed into law by Governor Bill Lee on April 23.
Incorporating elements of Do No Harm Action’s model “Detransitioner Bill of Rights,” the new statute allows individuals to “seek damages if they believe they were coerced into receiving hormones, puberty blockers or transition surgeries.”
The law also establishes a generous statute of limitations. Depending on their circumstances, patients alleging coercion by their doctors may bring suits up to 30 years after undergoing the procedures.
State Democrats are predictably frustrated by the new law, which passed without Democratic support and was signed by a Republican governor. Speaking to The Tennessee Lookout, State Senator Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) remarked, “It pains me personally that we spend so much time attacking transgender people in our state.”
Yet the Volunteer State’s new statute is not an “attack” on transgender Tennesseans. Rather, the law protects vulnerable residents, including minors, from pressure on the part of ideologically driven medical professionals.
Louisiana’s bill, SB234, concerns the grading systems used by the state’s public medical schools. If enacted, the legislation will require such institutions to use “a tiered grading system of High-Pass (HP), Pass (P), Low-Pass (LP), or Fail (F), or another tiered grading system with at least four such designations.”
As the bill itself makes clear, Louisiana has an interest in “ensuring that all curriculum coursework offered for a medical degree or certificate assesses a student’s performance on the assigned coursework.” Simple pass/fail frameworks of the kind sometimes favored by medical schools risk insufficiently measuring the extent to which students have mastered the material.
SB234 currently awaits voting in the Louisiana House. Though the full Senate and House Education Committee have already passed the measure unanimously, similar efforts elsewhere have attracted opposition.
Writing for News From The States, for instance, Indiana medical students Maya Votapek and Carl Russell argued last year that pass-fail grading “allows [medical students] to take charge of their medical education and maintain a balanced life.”
This argument defeats itself. Louisiana residents deserve physicians with superior knowledge, skill, experience, and judgment. While burnout can obviously produce mistakes, asking medical students to labor for “tiered” grades is hardly a violation of human rights.
Do No Harm Action applauds Tennessee for its common-sense measure and eagerly awaits further news from Louisiana. Laws such as these are fine examples of how states can protect children from gender ideology and ensure that merit wins the day in medical education.