A Call to Action to the Idaho State Board of Medicine

On Friday October 29, the Florida board of Medicine Legislative Committee passed a resolution prohibiting puberty blocking medications, the administration of cross sex hormone treatments, and transgender surgery for children under the age of 18. The announcement by Board member Dr. Nicholas Romanello sited scientific data from national health departments in Sweden, Finland, and England that have all abandoned “gender affirming” care of minors. The resolution was passed after an exhaustive review of the medical literature.

Dr. Nicholas’ statement:

“I believe that based upon the testimony that we’ve heard this morning and the materials in the portal, that the risk of puberty suppressing therapies, cross-hormonal therapy and surgery, those risks outweigh the possible benefits and that there is a lack of consistent, reliable, scientific peer reviewed evidence concerning the efficacy and safety of such treatment,” Romanello said.

I reviewed several hours of testimony that can be retrieved on the internet. One transgender patient named Chole seemed to sum up the situation very clearly:

“All the talk about mental health, self-perception, pronouns, and ideology leads me to the question, why is a mental health epidemic not being addressed with mental health treatment?” she said at the meeting. “I was not suicidal before going on hormones, and yet doctors asked my parents the question, ‘would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?’ This is not how medical professionals are supposed to talk. This is how activists talk.”

This defines the problem precisely. Physicians are no longer advocating on behalf of their patients, but rather on behalf of a political narrative. “PRIMUM NON NOCERE—”First do no harm” has since antiquity been part of the traditional Hippocratic Oath. In modern times up until the last few years medical students were required to take the oath prior to becoming physicians or surgeons. Recently several medical schools including the University of Washington have allowed medical students to create their own oaths, thus reenforcing a generation of medical professionals who are never held to a moral standard except of their own design. A conscience without a moral standard, and I might add a standard beyond self, can easily become merely a self-serving “moral preference”. Nominalist-humanist, secular relativism posits that individuals create their own individual moral standards. C. S. Lewis defined the situation:

But they all more or less come down to the notion that if objective morality exists – as opposed to mere personal preferences – then what is the source of that moral law? A moral law presumes a moral lawgiver. This law giver is God. He is the source and foundation of right and wrong. His own character determines moral absolutes. Since God is a perfect being, his moral perfections are what lie behind all true morality.

These moral standards are how we manage our interactions with each other. They are the basis of our legal system and our system of governance. They are the foundations of professional codes. The resolution of the Florida Board of Medicine is based on such a standard. When the standard isn’t followed, we end up with situations that were endorsed in the past by the medical profession like “The Final Solution”, eugenics, and “The Tuskegee Experiment”, and today by abortion advocates. and the promotors of “transgenderism. It seems almost ironic to me that the professions that deem themselves to be the most intelligent and “all knowing” are the first to cast aside a reliance on a moral authority.

I applaud the actions of the Florida Board of Medicine and I ask that the Idaho Board of Medicine and our legislature take similar action. The excuse that it is not for us to make “moral judgements” is again addressed by a quote from C. S. Lewis:

“If we are to continue to make moral judgments (and whatever we say we shall in fact continue) then we must believe that the conscience of man is not a product of his (own) Nature. It can be valid only if it is an offshoot of some absolute moral wisdom, a moral wisdom which exists absolutely “on its own” and is not a product of non-moral, non-rational Nature.”

Americans and Idahoans are an exceptional people because up until now the great majority of us have chosen to live by a common moral standard grounded in Biblical, Enlightenment and Constitutional principles that embrace the idea of “free will” and liberty. A child is unable to exercise their free will until they have reached adulthood. Children’s brains, and bodies and psyches need time to develop so they can make their own decisions. Adults usurping a child’s opportunity to exercise their (the child’s) free will once they become an adult, is acting on their own selfish “personal preference” not the child’s. Such an act has no grounding in MORAL LAW.

One last word from C. S. Lewis as he addresses the ambiguous morality of Naturalists—humanists, and their creation of a set of rules founded on emotion and empiricism and their own sense of reason without a moral standard.

“If we are to continue to make moral judgments (and whatever we say we shall in fact continue) then we must believe that the conscience of man is not a product of [his] Nature. It can be valid only if it is an offshoot of some absolute moral wisdom, a moral wisdom which exists absolutely “on its own” and is not a product of non-moral, non-rational Nature.”

That moral wisdom comes only from God.