The Daily Beagle's Opinion: This is a horribly messy ruling to make, and we have to first explore historical context.
Firstly, when the 14th amendment was drafted, it was extremely unlikely the concept of individuals having an opinion that differs from their biological reality would have been encompassed, as the concept did not exist at the time.
One could argue that the 14th amendment S.1 is a giant umbrella that includes 'everybody', however if we look at the other sections of the 14th amendment, we can see evidence that only explicit inclusion metrics were used. For example, S.2 mentions "excluding Indians not taxed", and even makes a specific reference to biological gender, such as "[...] is denied to any of the male inhabitants [...]" (male inhabitants here referring to all Americans, not just 'Indians not taxed').
Obviously when S.2. was written, "male" referred to the 'at time' concept of a male, that is, biological sex. It does not say 'those who aren't physically male but believe themselves male'; and they do make distinctions: they were able to distinguish between taxed and non-taxed 'Indians'. So the Constitution makes a strict, biological interpretation of male and female, fitting with the time period.
So one might alternatively approach this from the angle of US Citizen. We hit an interesting situation:
"[...] nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law [...]"
Notice it says a State must NOT deprive any person of 'life' or 'liberty'. If we take Tennessee's argument at face value that these surgeries are unnecessary, pose risk of harms - for example, driving minors to suicide post-surgery, or risk of death during said surgery - Tennessee is actually enjoined from allowing these to happen.
The crux of the argument then boils down to:
1) Are these necessary? [allowing potentially fatal surgery to save a life at risk of immediate harm does not violate S.1.]
2) Are these harmful? [allowing non-fatal, non-harmful surgeries to occur would not violate S.1.]
The court, we recognise, is not a medical institution. The Daily Beagle must declare a bias against the procedures at this point, but we trust our rationale is so plain speaking and self-evidently truthful that the justices would concur with our viewpoint.
1) They are not necessary, because the belief one is a different gender does not causally or consequentially result in immediate harm or death. The fact the plaintiffs are still alive during this long-standing legal procedure is evidence of this. Therefore, the burden lies solely on whether or not the surgery procedures are harmful.
2) Are they harmful? Even if we assume the surgeries have a zero percent fatality rate, we have numerous case precedents of minors being surgically altered and castrated (for that is what the end result is, ultimately) [see: https://thedailybeagle.substack.com/p/judge-robert-hickle-sides-with-child], castration in itself is a harm. Even if we assume the lower spectrum - breast mutilation - minors are often permanently disfigured, and a number have filed lawsuits that they were basically coerced into the procedure (see prior link). Some have even committed suicide as a result of the disfigurement.
Of course, surgeries do not have a zero percent fatality rate. So they are not zero risk.
So we have an unnecessary, high risk, permanently harmful procedure, to 'treat' a *belief* that does not immediately result in fatality.
We also propose the justices think of the precedent set if they rule that a simple belief is sufficient to compel surgery. This is an absurd scenario, but the court will hopefully recognize, when it comes to serial killers, truth is stranger than fiction.
Hypothetical case scenario:
Let us say, there's the Self-Harming Cult of Self-Harmers. The cult believes you should have the right to always self-harm. Cutting wrists, cutting off each others toes (all performed in a certified amputation hospital, of course!), removing hands and eyes. They always survive the procedures, a 100% safety rate. The made-up State of Abranka bans the Self-Harming procedures as they believe it enables abuse.
The Self-Harmers bring suit all the way to SCOTUS, and they cite the precedent that all US Citizens have the right to 'life' and 'liberty' under 14th Amendment and that they should be free to self-harm themselves (it won't be called self-harming though, but "affirmative care to validate their beliefs on self-amputation").
If you were to rule against this hypothetical scenario, how is it fundamentally different to what is being proposed here?
But if you rule in favour, what's to stop a serial abuser from suggesting his cult of brainwashed followers (lets say... Jim Jones) being abused is a legal right?
What we have here is a 'quacks like a duck' situation. If Tennessee is not able to ban surgical procedures, then it means Tennessee has no power to regulate *any* surgical procedures. Including tooth and toenail extractions by the mob.
One has the right to practice their own beliefs, but it does not come with the power to compel the State to enable or join in on said practice. Separation of Church and State. Also, it would make laws pertaining to physical child abuse extremely difficult to enforce, because if cutting a child's genitals and breasts is legal... what's to stop other physical mutilations under the same guise? Is this what the US wants to be known for, legal child harm?
And within less than 24 hours of publishing this article, SCOTUS makes a ruling on Loper Bright Enterprises V. Raimondo...
...coming to the exact same conclusion as The Daily Beagle.
"[...] judges will substitute their own best interpretation of the law, instead of deferring to the agencies - effectively making it easier to overturn regulations that govern wide-ranging aspects of American life."
I'll detail specifically why the comment makes legal sense.
The precedence of courts interpreting rules has been long established within English law, dating, arguably, as early as the Magna Carta, when requirements of judges/juries was established. US law inherits from the Magna Carta, and often times both US and UK court precedents will borrow from each other for clarity. Within English law, there is a heavy emphasis that whilst Parliament writes laws, courts will interpret them, as a buffer against Parliamentary overreach and absurd, contradictory outcomes.
Having courts interpret laws is intended both as a means of separation of powers, and as a means for dealing with ambiguous laws that are either incomplete, or did not foresee specific circumstances and scenarios
Courts are designed entirely around the concept of interpretation of laws; they have qualified judges, lawyers, long-standing historical precedent setting cases, and the means for multiple sides to argue their specific positions regarding different interpretations.
This prevents legislative interpretation from becoming a lopsided affair where the legislative always interprets in favour of itself when disputes over wording arises; this can and does lead to 'Humpty Dumpty reasoning':
"When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
This prejudices cases if allowed to happen, as even when the legislative offers a bizarre, twisted, unfair explanation - one not expected by the 'reasonable person on the street' - there are no means of recourse. One day the legislative could declare "fine" means everything is okay, and then the next reinterpret "fine" to mean a financial penalty of $1 million. Agencies cannot be voted on, and Congress does not have the speed to correct rapid re/misinterpretations by agencies.
It makes more sense then, to follow the traditional English law model, and have courts interpret laws, as a means to separate powers between the three branches, then you get a fair balance:
Congress writes laws (Legislative).
President vetoes laws, and can write executive orders (Executive).
Courts interpret laws (Judiciary).
Otherwise, if SCOTUS had approved the 'Chevron Deference', they'd be giving away court power to interpret laws. Court interpretations wouldn't matter because the agencies could just reinterpret laws on a whim, evading any sort of fairness or justice within the system.
Anyway, I'm glad SCOTUS came to a sensible decision.
This is shocking. Why did CHD intentionally misfile the case? Why are rules of procedures not followed in cases against Trump? The political elites are united against the common man.
Whilst I'm here, I will also tag on this case that recently came to my attention.
Case: United States v. Skrmetti
Summary: Does a ban on 'transgender procedures' violate the 14th amendment? (https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-skrmetti/)
The Daily Beagle's Opinion: This is a horribly messy ruling to make, and we have to first explore historical context.
Firstly, when the 14th amendment was drafted, it was extremely unlikely the concept of individuals having an opinion that differs from their biological reality would have been encompassed, as the concept did not exist at the time.
One could argue that the 14th amendment S.1 is a giant umbrella that includes 'everybody', however if we look at the other sections of the 14th amendment, we can see evidence that only explicit inclusion metrics were used. For example, S.2 mentions "excluding Indians not taxed", and even makes a specific reference to biological gender, such as "[...] is denied to any of the male inhabitants [...]" (male inhabitants here referring to all Americans, not just 'Indians not taxed').
Obviously when S.2. was written, "male" referred to the 'at time' concept of a male, that is, biological sex. It does not say 'those who aren't physically male but believe themselves male'; and they do make distinctions: they were able to distinguish between taxed and non-taxed 'Indians'. So the Constitution makes a strict, biological interpretation of male and female, fitting with the time period.
So one might alternatively approach this from the angle of US Citizen. We hit an interesting situation:
"[...] nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law [...]"
Notice it says a State must NOT deprive any person of 'life' or 'liberty'. If we take Tennessee's argument at face value that these surgeries are unnecessary, pose risk of harms - for example, driving minors to suicide post-surgery, or risk of death during said surgery - Tennessee is actually enjoined from allowing these to happen.
The crux of the argument then boils down to:
1) Are these necessary? [allowing potentially fatal surgery to save a life at risk of immediate harm does not violate S.1.]
2) Are these harmful? [allowing non-fatal, non-harmful surgeries to occur would not violate S.1.]
The court, we recognise, is not a medical institution. The Daily Beagle must declare a bias against the procedures at this point, but we trust our rationale is so plain speaking and self-evidently truthful that the justices would concur with our viewpoint.
1) They are not necessary, because the belief one is a different gender does not causally or consequentially result in immediate harm or death. The fact the plaintiffs are still alive during this long-standing legal procedure is evidence of this. Therefore, the burden lies solely on whether or not the surgery procedures are harmful.
2) Are they harmful? Even if we assume the surgeries have a zero percent fatality rate, we have numerous case precedents of minors being surgically altered and castrated (for that is what the end result is, ultimately) [see: https://thedailybeagle.substack.com/p/judge-robert-hickle-sides-with-child], castration in itself is a harm. Even if we assume the lower spectrum - breast mutilation - minors are often permanently disfigured, and a number have filed lawsuits that they were basically coerced into the procedure (see prior link). Some have even committed suicide as a result of the disfigurement.
Of course, surgeries do not have a zero percent fatality rate. So they are not zero risk.
So we have an unnecessary, high risk, permanently harmful procedure, to 'treat' a *belief* that does not immediately result in fatality.
We also propose the justices think of the precedent set if they rule that a simple belief is sufficient to compel surgery. This is an absurd scenario, but the court will hopefully recognize, when it comes to serial killers, truth is stranger than fiction.
Hypothetical case scenario:
Let us say, there's the Self-Harming Cult of Self-Harmers. The cult believes you should have the right to always self-harm. Cutting wrists, cutting off each others toes (all performed in a certified amputation hospital, of course!), removing hands and eyes. They always survive the procedures, a 100% safety rate. The made-up State of Abranka bans the Self-Harming procedures as they believe it enables abuse.
The Self-Harmers bring suit all the way to SCOTUS, and they cite the precedent that all US Citizens have the right to 'life' and 'liberty' under 14th Amendment and that they should be free to self-harm themselves (it won't be called self-harming though, but "affirmative care to validate their beliefs on self-amputation").
If you were to rule against this hypothetical scenario, how is it fundamentally different to what is being proposed here?
But if you rule in favour, what's to stop a serial abuser from suggesting his cult of brainwashed followers (lets say... Jim Jones) being abused is a legal right?
What we have here is a 'quacks like a duck' situation. If Tennessee is not able to ban surgical procedures, then it means Tennessee has no power to regulate *any* surgical procedures. Including tooth and toenail extractions by the mob.
One has the right to practice their own beliefs, but it does not come with the power to compel the State to enable or join in on said practice. Separation of Church and State. Also, it would make laws pertaining to physical child abuse extremely difficult to enforce, because if cutting a child's genitals and breasts is legal... what's to stop other physical mutilations under the same guise? Is this what the US wants to be known for, legal child harm?
And within less than 24 hours of publishing this article, SCOTUS makes a ruling on Loper Bright Enterprises V. Raimondo...
...coming to the exact same conclusion as The Daily Beagle.
"[...] judges will substitute their own best interpretation of the law, instead of deferring to the agencies - effectively making it easier to overturn regulations that govern wide-ranging aspects of American life."
https://web.archive.org/web/20240628181406/https://www.zerohedge.com/political/scotus-overturns-chevron-deference-massive-blow-administrative-state
I'll detail specifically why the comment makes legal sense.
The precedence of courts interpreting rules has been long established within English law, dating, arguably, as early as the Magna Carta, when requirements of judges/juries was established. US law inherits from the Magna Carta, and often times both US and UK court precedents will borrow from each other for clarity. Within English law, there is a heavy emphasis that whilst Parliament writes laws, courts will interpret them, as a buffer against Parliamentary overreach and absurd, contradictory outcomes.
Having courts interpret laws is intended both as a means of separation of powers, and as a means for dealing with ambiguous laws that are either incomplete, or did not foresee specific circumstances and scenarios
Courts are designed entirely around the concept of interpretation of laws; they have qualified judges, lawyers, long-standing historical precedent setting cases, and the means for multiple sides to argue their specific positions regarding different interpretations.
This prevents legislative interpretation from becoming a lopsided affair where the legislative always interprets in favour of itself when disputes over wording arises; this can and does lead to 'Humpty Dumpty reasoning':
"When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
This prejudices cases if allowed to happen, as even when the legislative offers a bizarre, twisted, unfair explanation - one not expected by the 'reasonable person on the street' - there are no means of recourse. One day the legislative could declare "fine" means everything is okay, and then the next reinterpret "fine" to mean a financial penalty of $1 million. Agencies cannot be voted on, and Congress does not have the speed to correct rapid re/misinterpretations by agencies.
It makes more sense then, to follow the traditional English law model, and have courts interpret laws, as a means to separate powers between the three branches, then you get a fair balance:
Congress writes laws (Legislative).
President vetoes laws, and can write executive orders (Executive).
Courts interpret laws (Judiciary).
Otherwise, if SCOTUS had approved the 'Chevron Deference', they'd be giving away court power to interpret laws. Court interpretations wouldn't matter because the agencies could just reinterpret laws on a whim, evading any sort of fairness or justice within the system.
Anyway, I'm glad SCOTUS came to a sensible decision.
This is shocking. Why did CHD intentionally misfile the case? Why are rules of procedures not followed in cases against Trump? The political elites are united against the common man.