On Monday, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a statement applauding a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to vacate a preliminary injunction that had been entered by a district court last year in Eknes-Tucker v. Marshall.
The federal appeals court decision will soon enable the state to enforce the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, which prohibits administering sex-modification procedures to minors.
“The Eleventh Circuit reinforced that the State has the authority to safeguard the physical and psychological wellbeing of minors, even if the United States Attorney General and radical interest groups disapprove,” said AG Marshall. “Alabama takes this responsibility seriously by forbidding doctors from prescribing minors sex-modification procedures that have permanent and often irreversible effects. This is a significant victory for our country, for children, and for common sense.”
Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Protection and Compassion Act was sponsored by State Senator Shay Shelnutt (R-Trussville) and then State Representative Wes Allen (R-Troy) – Allen was elected Secretary of State last year.
Marshall has defended this and similar laws to protect children from sterilizing medical interventions. Marshall says that these procedures are being pushed by medical interest groups that are driven by the pursuit of profit and radical ideology. In August, Marshall led a multistate brief in Missouri highlighting what he calls the dishonesty of advocacy groups like the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Similarly, in July, General Marshall filed a brief on behalf of 21 states in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals supporting Tennessee’s and Kentucky’s laws protecting minors from chemical and surgical sex-modification procedures for kids.
The Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act was signed into law in April 2022. On May 13, 2022, the federal district court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the law from being enforced. Monday’s ruling lifts that preliminary injunction. The case will still proceed through the federal court system. Advocates for these controversial procedures vow to continue their court fight.
In lifting the injunction, the judges wrote that states have “a compelling interest in protecting children from drugs, particularly those for which there is uncertainty regarding benefits, recent surges in use, and irreversible effects.”
Steve Marshall was appointed Alabama Attorney General in 2017. He was elected in his own right in 2018 and then re-elected for his second full term in 2022. Before he served as AG, Marshall was the district attorney for Marshall County.
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