Yesterday, the West Virginia House of Delegates approved an amendment from Del. J.B. Akers ® to allow a child’s “treating health care provider” to examine a child’s genitals without the consent of their parents.
The amendment was actually an improvement over a previous version of the bill, which, state Democrats argued, would have allowed teachers to perform the genital examinations.
Akers’ amendment was the Republican response to one proposed by Del. Kayla Young (D), which would have banned child and adult genital examinations altogether.
“It’s unconscionable that Republicans would support legislation that authorizes intrusive visual inspections of minors without parental approval,” Young said. “West Virginians should be alarmed and disgusted by this invasion of privacy.”
It also says that all intersex people are “either male or female” but does not give a basis for assigning a sex to them.
You’re looking at this problem all wrong, it’s not that children cannot consent. Nobody is arguing that. The change here is that now those that would be doing the tests are no longer considered child predators because they didn’t do anything illegal. So now it would be totally fine for priests, doctors, senators, neighbors, etc to look at random kids genitals to verify sexuality without any resistance from their parents/guardians. Is this how we finally do away with rapists, by redefining sexual assault.
Some of these things are not like the others.
After COVID, many doctors left rural areas. This has left many communities across the country lacking proper “treating health care providers”. Who do you think is going to fill that gap for the purpose of this bill. Besides, most of the time the ones that are making headlines for this stuff typically have an R next to their name. But you’re right, some of these things are not like the others. And that’s kinda my point.