Friday, May 17, 2019

Courts!

When you go to court it is a crapshoot, you never know how it is going to turn out and then there are always endless appeals.
Court Hears Appeal In Idaho Transgender Case
By Amanda Peacher
May 16, 2019

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in San Francisco Thursday in the case of transgender inmate in Idaho Adree Edmo, who sued to get sex reassignment surgery. A lower court judge ruled in her favor, but the state of Idaho appealed that decision.

This case hinges on Edmo proving that prison health care providers were being deliberately indifferent to her medical needs in denying her the surgery, and much of Thursday’s hearing was focused on that issue. Under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, such indifference would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
[…]
State of Idaho attorney Brady Hall argues that there is medical disagreement about the treatment for gender dysphoria.
Oh really?

Let’s see the APA, the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Endocrinology, and the National Association of Social Workers with a total membership in the hundreds of thousands all support and agree on the treatment for us while the couple of hundred members of American College of Pediatricians and Paul McHugh; I don’t see any medical disagreement I see an ideological disagreement.
“Defendants have offered her zero additional treatment after either of those attempts,” Rifkin says. “They have ignored generally accepted medical standards, despite her actual harm.”

The defendants in the case are Idaho Department of Correction and Corizon Inc., the private health care company that contracts with the state to provide medical care to inmates.
I think two factors are at work here, the bias against trans people and the desire to maximize profits.
University of California-Davis law professor Courtney Joslin watched the oral arguments. She says the 9th Circuit judges seemed to understand the severity of Edmo’s gender dysphoria.

“The court did appreciate how much suffering she is experiencing every day as the result of the denial of this medically necessary treatment,” says Joslin. She says that’s an important aspect of the constitutional analysis that the court has to take into account in this case.
If the state loses I foresee them appealing this case all the way to the Supreme Court  meanwhile Adree Edmo suffers.


No comments:

Post a Comment