Three federal judges exposed Alabama physicians to felony charges last week.
But U.S. Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa wanted everyone to know it was complicated.
“This case revolves around an issue that is surely of the utmost importance to all of the parties involved: the safety and wellbeing of the children of Alabama,” Lagoa wrote in a 49-page majority opinion allowing Alabama to make it a crime to offer medical treatment to transgender youth under age 19. “But it is complicated by the fact that there is a strong disagreement between the parties over what is best for those children. Absent a constitutional mandate to the contrary, these types of issues are quintessentially the sort that our system of government reserves to legislative, not judicial, action.”
