Washington state Democrats have introduced a Constitutional amendment to protect “gender-affirming care” buried in language about protecting access to abortions. The through-line, as they see it, is protecting bodily autonomy, meaning that women (whatever they think that means) can have abortions and everyone can have sex changes, all under the heading of doing whatever you want with your own body.
Host of the UnDivided Podcast Brandi Kruse, who first reported the move, said, “They are going to trick voters into supporting child mutilation by tying it to abortion.” Abortion is already codified in Washington state law.
According to Senate Joint Resolution 8204, “At the next general election to be held in this state the Secretary of State shall submit to the qualified voters of the state for their approval and ratification or rejection a new Article to the constitution of the state of Washington” regarding “Reproductive freedom and gender-affirming care.”
The proposed Article says, “The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual's reproductive freedom decisions, which includes the individual's fundamental right to choose to have an abortion, the individual's fundamental right to choose to use contraception, the individual's fundamental right to choose to use assisted reproductive technology, and the individual's fundamental right to be free from discrimination on the basis of the individual's pregnancy outcome, nor shall the state deny or interfere with an individual's gender-affirming care decisions.”
The resolution is in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order that will cut federal funding to hospitals providing “destructive and life-altering” gender-altering procedures on children. Last month, Seattle Children’s Hospital stopped performing the controversial surgeries on minors.
Late Friday night, federal Judge Lauren King, in Seattle, granted Washington state’s request for a preliminary injunction to block President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting gender-altering procedures. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown has criticized the Trump administration's policy, which halted federal funding to medical institutions providing gender-altering procedures including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgical procedures to individuals under 19 years old.
Last month, Washington State Senate Majority Leader Jaime Pederson (D-Seattle) said "Kids over 13 have the right to make their own decisions about their mental healthcare. Parents don't have the right to have notice, they don't have a right to have consent about that.” Referring to 13-year-olds, he added, "If they're old enough to get pregnant, they're old enough to make their own decisions about what happens with their bodies, and parents do not have the right to change that."
The comments followed Washington Senate Democrats unanimously voting to strip parental rights from legislation they passed with Republicans last year. Washingtonians collected over 454,000 signatures to bring Initiative 2081 before the Legislature that reaffirms 15 rights that parents of public school students have, including notifying parents of academic, medical, safety, and law enforcement issues and the right to examine and request records and educational materials. Washington Democrats rejected many commonsense amendments to SB 5181, including an amendment that would restore provisions granting parents and legal guardians the right to receive notification when medical services are offered to their child. Every Senate Republican voted against the bill. Despite voting for the initiative last year, Democrats have been seeking to undermine it since it passed. Last week, a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by left learning groups, including the ALCU and donors, that was attempting to block several aspects of the bill.
Pedersen and Speaker of the House Laurie Jinkins (D-Tacoma), who are leading the effort to gut the parental rights initiative, previously wrote an op-ed claiming they supported it because approximately 90 percent of the initiative was already state law. The companion legislation in the Washington House of Representatives, HB 1296, is still working its way through the chamber. Last month, Democrats in the House voted against an amendment that would have required school districts to immediately notify parents if their student is the victim of sexual misconduct by a school employee.
In the last legislative session, Washington Democrats passed Senate Bill 5599, which critics say encourages minors to run away from home to receive "gender-affirming" care and "maternity services" without parental consent and at taxpayer expense. The bill signed into law by then-Governor Jay Inslee allows shelters or host homes to provide housing for runaway minors without being required to notify their parents if they have a "compelling reason" to keep the information a secret. Critics slammed the bill as turning Washington into a "sanctuary state" for sex changes and abortion.
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