WASHINGTON, DC, Aug 17 -- Next to the words, "I do," when a man and woman get married, the words, "It's a girl" or "It's a boy," are arguably the most precious declarations a husband and wife can make.
But the AMA is now saying that we've got it wrong. They say that it's not up to the parents to declare their child's gender; that it is up to the kid to decide whether he's a, she or she's a he. Or, for that matter, it's up to the children to identify themselves as something else entirely.
Here's the American Medical Association's conclusion in a new, controversial, and decidedly wrong-headed report, as some are describing it: "Existing AMA policy recognizes that every individual has the right to determine their gender identity and sex designation on government documents … To protect individual privacy and to prevent discrimination, U.S. jurisdictions should remove sex designation on the birth certificate." The AMA was kind enough in its declaration that its decision would only apply to birth certificates; and that parents would still be able to report the baby's sex to the government "for scientific and statistical reasons."
The folks at Federalist.com took issue with the AMA's take on the subject, pointing out that the issue of birth certificates is not a medical concern. In fact, in her article on the association's report, author Kylee Zempel suggests that keeping one's sex a secret can have deadly unintended medical consequences. She cites a case in which a 32-year-old man was hospitalized due to complaints of "intermittent abdominal pain." He was somewhat obese, according to an attending nurse. It turned out that he was not obese he was a transgender woman, and she was pregnant. Those intermittent pains were labor pains. This was not discovered in time, and the patient died.
Ms. Zempel goes on to point out that the AMA declaration unwittingly and/or unknowingly revealed its misrepresentations regarding the gender-sex issue by "flip-flopping" between sex and gender in its report.
She cited this paragraph in particular: "Sex designation, as collected through the standard form and included on the birth certificate, refers to the biological difference between males and females. Today, the majority of states (48) and the District of Columbia allow people to amend their sex designation on their birth certificate to reflect their individual gender identities, but only 10 states allow for a gender-neutral designation, typically 'X,' on the birth certificate. Existing AMA policy recognizes that every individual has the right to determine their gender identity and sex designation on government documents."
Political commentator Ben Shapiro wrote an opinion article on the AMA's report. As he put it, "The implication that parents are doing violence against their own children if they connect sex and gender is utterly anti-evidentiary. Sex and gender are interconnected. For nearly every human being born, biological sex will correspond with genital development in the womb. And gender, contrary to the idiotic, pseudoscientific paganism of the gender theory set, is not some free-floating set of biases we bring to the table."
Shapiro, who is noted for his ability to cut to the crux of an issue, went on to say that "Males and females have different qualities in a variety of functions, attitudes, desires and capabilities. In every human culture — indeed, in every mammalian species — meaningful distinctions between male and female remain. To reduce children to genderless unicorns simply awaiting hormonal guidance from within piles absurdity upon absurdity."
Many other high-profile individuals expressed their scorn, as did ordinary folk. Nikki Haley, the former Ambassador to the United Nations, in her tweet, said it was "the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Stop the madness."
Author and scholar Christina Sommers stated that "Another once-trusted institution has lost its mind."
Men and women from all walks of life lashed out at the AMA as well. One tweeter was concerned that it could have an impact on how doctors might or might not "properly treat" a patient if they don't know his or her sex.
Finally, one individual turned to social media to warn that the AMA report "is literally a propaganda takeover of truth. If there were more than 2 genders at human birth, nature would also have multiple genders in all animals. That's literally never happened. All of nature is male or female gender. Truth: It's a (rare) human psychology issue."
FOOTNOTE: In June, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial board Opinion article entitled Doctors for Progressive Conformity. It evoked a lot of responses from physicians throughout America.
The AMA, as expected, took umbrage at the newspaper's observations in a letters to the editor column.
Two physicians revealed the organization's dirty little secret-- that it has become a progressive socialist organization and, as a result, its membership has been decimated. One of them had this to say: "the AMA has morphed into a leftist advocacy group. I therefore have decided to join the majority of U.S. physicians. I will not be renewing my membership." To put his message into context, he went on to point out that in its glory days, during the 1950s, 75% of American physicians were members of the AMA compared to just 25% today.
John Grimaldi served on the first non-partisan communications department in the New York State Assembly and is a founding member of the Board of Directors of Priva Technologies, Inc. He has served for more than thirty years as a Trustee of Daytop Village Foundation, which oversees a worldwide drug rehabilitation network.
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