Alabama cites abortion ruling in transgender medication case

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can prohibit abortion, Alabama has seized on the decision to argue that the state should also be able to ban gender-affirming medical treatments for transgender youth.

The case marks one of the first known instances in which a conservative state has tried to apply the abortion ruling to other realms, just as LGBTQ advocates and others were afraid would happen.

Critics have expressed fear that the legal reasoning behind the high court ruling could lead to a rollback of decisions involving such matters as gay marriage and birth control.

The state is asking a federal appeals court to lift an injunction and let it enforce an Alabama law that would make it a felony to give puberty blockers or hormones to transgender minors to help affirm their gender identity.

In its historic ruling last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court said terminating a pregnancy is not a fundamental constitutional right because abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution and is not “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition."

In a brief filed Monday, the Alabama attorney general's office argued similarly that gender transition treatments are not “deeply rooted in our history or traditions," and thus the state has the authority to ban them. Alabama contends such treatments are dangerous and experimental, a view disputed by medical organizations.

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said it is the first case he is aware of in which a state cited the abortion ruling on another issue, but added, “It won’t be the last.”

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion that the abortion ruling should not cast “doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” But...