Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act of 2025
Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act of 2025
Plain Language Summary
# Summary of S. 209: Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act of 2025 **What the bill would do:** This bill would hold medical practitioners legally liable for 30 years if they perform gender-transition procedures on patients under 18, making them responsible for any physical, psychological, or emotional harms that result. It would also penalize states by cutting federal Health and Human Services funding if they require doctors to perform such procedures.
The bill defines gender-transition procedures as surgeries or hormone therapies that change a minor's body to match a different sex than their biological sex, though it excludes treatments for intersex conditions and medical problems like infections or injuries. **Who it affects:** The bill primarily affects minors considering gender-transition treatments, their families, medical providers offering such care, and state healthcare systems. It would also impact how states regulate medical practice in this area. **Current status:** The bill was introduced in the 119th Congress by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) and is currently in committee, meaning it has not yet been voted on by the full Senate. No action has been taken since its introduction.
CRS Official Summary
Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act of 2025This bill makes a medical practitioner who performs a gender-transition procedure on an individual who is less than 18 years of age liable for any physical, psychological, emotional, or physiological harms from the procedure for 30 years after the individual turns 18.Additionally, if a state requires medical practitioners to perform gender-transition procedures, that state shall be ineligible for federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services.Under the bill, gender-transition procedures generally include certain surgeries or hormone therapies that change the body of an individual to correspond to a sex that is discordant with the individual's biological sex. They exclude, however, interventions to treat (1) individuals who either have ambiguous external biological sex characteristics or lack a normal sex chromosome structure, sex steroid hormone production, or sex steroid hormone action; (2) infections, injuries, diseases, or disorders caused by a gender-transition procedure; or (3) a physical disorder, injury, or illness that places an individual in imminent danger of death or impairment of a major bodily function.
Latest Action
Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.