Protecting Parental Rights and Children from Irreversible Surgery

HB1376 addresses a narrowly defined but consequential problem: the growing use of child-abuse statutes, custody proceedings, adoption screenings, and foster-care licensing as instruments to penalize parents who decline to affirm a child's claimed gender identity. By explicitly removing that parental choice from the list of conduct the state may treat as abuse or neglect, the bill restores the proper boundary between family authority and government power.

From a biblical standpoint, sex is not an accident of biology but a purposeful aspect of how God created each person as His image-bearer. Parents bear a God-delegated stewardship over their children, and no state agency should be empowered to override that stewardship simply because it disagrees with a family's convictions about human nature. HB1376 recognizes that stewardship and protects it in concrete legal terms.

The breast-surgery provision is carefully drawn. It preserves existing prohibitions on elective mastectomies performed on minors for gender-transition purposes while carving out a narrow medical exception for documented conditions such as musculoskeletal pain. This balance reflects genuine prudence: it does not sweep away legitimate medical care, but it does hold a firm line against irreversible procedures performed on children who cannot yet fully consent to their lifelong consequences.

Critics may argue the bill harms children by limiting affirmation. The bill does the opposite: it ensures children are protected from permanent surgical alteration during a formative period of development, and it ensures that parents who hold a traditional, faith-grounded view of human biology are not stripped of their children or barred from adoption and foster care for that reason alone. Protection and parental authority are not in conflict here; they are aligned.

HB1376 is a model worth emulating. Its operative provisions are direct, its scope is appropriate, and its effect is measurable. Parents across New Hampshire who hold a convictional view of biological sex now have statutory ground to stand on when the state comes to the door. The American Council offers its full support and encourages other states to study this legislation closely.