Protect Minors from Medical Malpractice Act of 2025
Impact
If enacted, HB653 would impact state laws related to medical malpractice by introducing legal repercussions for healthcare providers who administer gender transition-related treatments to minors. The bill asserts that such procedures may lead to various forms of harm, including physical, psychological, and emotional injuries. Additionally, the legislation would prevent states from mandating medical practitioners to provide gender transition procedures, as it upholds the notion of preserving the freedom of conscience and medical judgment among healthcare providers.
Summary
House Bill 653, known as the 'Protect Minors from Medical Malpractice Act of 2025', is a proposed legislation aimed at imposing liability on medical practitioners who perform gender transition procedures on individuals under the age of 18. The bill establishes a private right of action, allowing affected minors to bring civil lawsuits against medical practitioners within a defined timeframe after they reach adulthood. This legislation is significant as it intends to protect minors from potential medical malpractice associated with these procedures, emphasizing the risks for young individuals undergoing such transitions.
Contention
The bill is likely to provoke significant debate, particularly among legislators and advocacy groups. Supporters claim it is necessary for safeguarding minors who may not be ready to make irreversible decisions regarding their bodies, whereas opponents may view it as an infringement on medical professionals' autonomy and an attack on transgender rights. Proponents of the bill argue that it lays critical protections for potentially vulnerable individuals, while critics point to the risks of denying appropriate medical care for transgender youth, potentially exacerbating issues of mental health and well-being among these individuals.
Related
Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act of 2025This bill makes a medical practitioner who performs a gender-transition procedure on an individual who is less than 18 years of age liable for any physical, psychological, emotional, or physiological harms from the procedure for 30 years after the individual turns 18.Additionally, if a state requires medical practitioners to perform gender-transition procedures, that state shall be ineligible for federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services.Under the bill, gender-transition procedures generally include certain surgeries or hormone therapies that change the body of an individual to correspond to a sex that is discordant with the individual's biological sex. They exclude, however, interventions to treat (1) individuals who either have ambiguous external biological sex characteristics or lack a normal sex chromosome structure, sex steroid hormone production, or sex steroid hormone action; (2) infections, injuries, diseases, or disorders caused by a gender-transition procedure; or (3) a physical disorder, injury, or illness that places an individual in imminent danger of death or impairment of a major bodily function.
To Amend The Protecting Minors From Medical Malpractice Act Of 2023; And To Include Gender-affirming Interventions As A Right Of Action For Medical Malpractice.
Requires health insurance and Medicaid coverage for family planning and reproductive health care services; prohibits adverse actions by medical malpractice insurers in relation to performance of legally protected health care services.
Requires health insurance and Medicaid coverage for family planning and reproductive health care services; prohibits adverse actions by medical malpractice insurers in relation to performance of legally protected health care services.