US Supreme Court upholds state law protecting children from experimental, dangerous procedures

WASHINGTON – In a landmark victory for children’s health and science-based medicine, the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday upheld Tennessee’s law protecting minors from harmful and life-altering drugs and surgeries. The ruling will help protect 26 similar state laws and return common sense to America’s medical system.

“No one has the right to harm a child,” said ADF CEO and President Kristen Waggoner. “The Biden administration and ACLU asked the court to create a ‘constitutional right’ to give children harmful, experimental drugs and surgeries that turn them into patients for life. This would have forced states to base their laws on ideology, not evidence—to the immense harm of countless children. The court’s rejection of that request is a monumental victory for children, science, and common sense. States are free to protect children from the greatest medical scandal in generations—and that’s exactly what states like Tennessee have done.”

In 2023, Tennessee passed a bipartisan law prohibiting health care providers from administering puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones or performing surgeries on children who are uncomfortable with their sex.

The high court decided to review the case United States of America v. Skrmetti after the Biden administration appealed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit that upheld Tennessee’s law. ADF attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court in October 2024, urging the court to let state legislatures protect children from these experimental medical procedures.

Tennessee’s law is “plainly rationally related” to the state’s findings that administering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors with gender dysphoria “can lead to the minor becoming irreversibly sterile, having increased risk of disease and illness, or suffering from adverse and sometimes fatal psychological consequences,” the court wrote in its opinion. The law is also rationally related to “the State’s objective of protecting minors’ health and welfare.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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