Happening now: State-paid sex changes for kids without parental notification

Under a first-in-the-nation policy quietly enacted in January that many parents are only just now finding out about, 15-year-old children are now allowed to get a sex-change operation in Oregon without parental notification or consent. Bonus: Oregon will pay for it through its Medicaid program, the Oregon Health Plan.

Children, who in most states cannot drive, smoke, donate blood, get a tattoo, or even take an aspirin that's unsupervised by a school nurse, can get their genitals removed and or mutilated without their parents’ knowledge.

The decision to cover sex-change operations specifically was made by Oregon's Health Evidence Review Commission (HERC) - members of which are appointed by the governor and paid by the state of Oregon. With no public debate, HERC changed its policy to include cross-sex hormone therapy, puberty-suppressing drugs and gender-reassignment surgery as covered treatments for people with gender dysphoria, formally known as gender identity disorder.

Just for the record, gender dysphoria is classified by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder (for now) in which a person identifies as the sex opposite of his or her birth. It is rare, affecting one out of every 20,000 males and one out of every 50,000 females.

And, according to a 2008 study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, "most children with gender dysphoria will not remain gender dysphoric after puberty."

Fifteen year-old kids are just barely past the phase of thinking the opposite sex has cooties, yet Oregon commission members think kids this young are in a position to make such an enormous decision on their own regarding their sexual identity. 

It's interesting how in the liberal worldview, an adult with no criminal history or history of mental illness should not be allowed to buy a handgun, but a 15 year-old  suffering from a proclaimed mental disorder should be allowed to single-handedly accept harmful and life-changing medical procedures without the consent and involvement of his parents.

As Lori Porter of Parents' Rights in Education put it, "It is trespassing on the hearts, the minds, the bodies of our children. They're our children. And for a decision, a life-altering decision like that to be done unbeknownst to a parent or guardian, it's mindboggling."

I think it's more than mindboggling. I think it's a profound sign of just how dark our country has become. All boundaries of right and wrong and common sense are simply disappearing in this haze of anything goes - especially regarding sexuality - in which we are now living. God help us. We need Him and prayer like never before.

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