By Anna Kaminski, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed Republican-led legislation Tuesday that attempts to ban gender-affirming care for minors, a move a top GOP lawmaker called “reckless and senseless.”
Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed a similar bill last year, and Republicans failed to coordinate the necessary two-thirds majority to override the veto. House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, said in a statement Tuesday that House Republicans were ready to override this year’s veto.
The so-called Help Not Harm Act, which restricts certain types of health care that professionals can provide to individuals younger than 18, cleared the House in an 83-35 vote and the Senate in a 32-8 last month. The House vote was one shy of a two-thirds majority with four Republicans absent.
“Right now, the Legislature should be focused on ways to help Kansans cope with rising prices. That is the most important issue for Kansans. That is where my focus is,” Kelly said in a statement.
Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, said the Senate is prepared to “swiftly override her veto before the ink from her pen is dry.”
Hawkins said House Republicans were “ready to override this reckless and senseless veto.”
Senate Bill 63 would prohibit gender-affirming care recommended or performed in response to gender dysphoria, the psychological distress that arises when a person’s biological sex and gender identity differ. Gender-affirming care includes the prescription of puberty blockers and hormones, along with surgery. The bill would forbid the use of taxpayer dollars for promotion or education on gender transition. It also would allow civil penalties for health care workers found to be in violation.
Kelly said it is not a politician’s role “to stand between a parent and a child who needs medical care of any kind.” Kelly said the legislation, if her veto is overridden, would drive Kansas families, business and health professionals out of the state. She added that the Legislature’s support of the act was “disappointing.”
Hawkins said Kelly’s veto was a choice of “partisan politics over the safety and wellbeing of our Kansas children.” Masterson pinned the veto on Kelly’s “extreme, left-wing ideology.”
Brittany Jones, a lobbyist for the anti-abortion organization Kansas Family Voice who testified in favor of the Help Not Harm Act in hearings last month, encouraged lawmakers to override the veto.
“Kansas children deserve better than harmful experimentation and life-altering procedures,” she said in a Tuesday news release. “This bill merely regulates a medical procedure which is well within the legislature’s jurisdiction.”
Some opponents have called into question the constitutionality of the Help Not Harm Act if it becomes law because of a Kansas Supreme Court decision on abortion that affirmed a right to bodily autonomy. Democrats have opposed the bill in committee hearings and floor debates.
