On Wednesday, the Ohio House of Representatives voted to override Governor Mike DeWine’s veto of House Bill 68. Lawmakers returned early from their winter break for the override of the bill banning transgender surgeries and hormone therapies for children under the age of 18.
The bill also bans biological males who claim to be females from participating in female sports in the Buckeye State.
The House voted 65-28 to override DeWine’s veto. HB 68 will now go to the state’s Senate, where at least 20 votes will be needed to complete the override. The Ohio Senate passed the legislation in December with 24 votes in favor of the bill. The Senate next meets in late January, when it is expected to consider the override.
DeWine, of course, still believed he was right to veto the bill.
“I continue to believe it is in the best interests of children for these medical decisions to be made by the child’s parents and not by the government,” the governor said in a statement after the veto was announced.
DeWine had apparently fallen for the ruse that such therapy is “life saving” after speaking to parents of some transgender youth.
“They told me their child is alive only because they received care,” DeWine said at the time. “Ultimately, I believe this is about protecting human life.”
“Were I to sign House Bill 68 … Ohio would be saying that the state, that the government knows better what is medically best for the child than the two people who love that child the most: the parents,” he said when he vetoed the bill, adding, “Now, while there are rare times in the law in other circumstances where the state overrules the medical decisions made by the parents, I can think of no examples where this is done where it is not only against the decision of the parent, but also against the medical judgement of the treating physician and against the judgement of the treating team of medical experts.”
But in the previous week, DeWine signed his own executive order banning sex-change surgeries for children. Hormone therapies and biological males competing in female athletics were not addressed in the executive order.
Republicans took a victory lap in the small culture-war victory.
“Today marks yet another victory for women and children in Ohio,” said State Representative Gary Click, a Republican and a co-sponsor of the bill. “It is hard to fathom that we live in a society that would tell children that they need drugs and scalpels to live their authentic lives.”
“No parent has the constitutional right to harm their child,” Click said. “The same government that requires you to send your children to school, prohibits you from giving them illicit drugs and can charge parents with neglect and abuse also has the obligation to prevent parents and physicians from chemically castrating and sterilizing their children.”
“This bill is about protecting children,” said House Speaker Jason Stephens, a Republican from Kitts Hill. “It’s also empowering families and empowering parents.… There’s good people on both sides who see the approach differently.”
Democrat Allison Russo claimed that the override hurts all of Ohio.
“It is harmful to not only the trans community, but really all Ohioans because what it does is it sets the precedent and says that government and politicians once again, are going to be between individuals, between families, and their doctors and the best and most appropriate medical care,” she told reporters.
Russo wanted the trans community to know that “there are people who value them as individuals, and will keep fighting for their right and their freedom to get the care that they need.”
The perversion advocates at the ACLU blasted the override, claiming in a statement that it represented a “vendetta against some of Ohio’s most vulnerable young people.”
The bill will become law should the Ohio Senate follow the House’s example and override the veto later this month. At least one Republican co-sponsor of the bill is excited for that opportunity.
“I co-sponsored HB 68 because the bill is strongly pro-women and pro-children,” state Senator Theresa Gavarone posted on X. “I’m extremely disappointed Governor DeWine chose to veto, but our work will not stop there. Today, the House voted to override his veto and I’m excited to do the same when the Senate reconvenes soon.”
Perhaps the one thing Ohioans should take from this episode is the utter spinelessness of their governor. In an incredible display of fence straddling, DeWine vetoed the bill — apparently buying the trans activist line that such risky procedures are somehow “life saving” — yet a few days before the override issued an executive order banning sex-change operations for children — a key component of the bill.
