Why I Get Real Nervous About Government Health Care

Why I Get Real Nervous About Government Health Care

Here's a purely elective medical treatment being done for convicted felons because a judge ordered it done. From the August 6, 2009 Idaho Statesman:

BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Department of Correction has settled lawsuits with two transgender inmates who castrated themselves after they were denied feminizing hormone therapy.

The terms of the settlements were not disclosed, but the department has changed its policy for identifying and treating transgender inmates. The policy now limits the time inmates must wait for treatment, specifies how they may be diagnosed, and clarifies when they qualify for hormone therapy.

Josephime Von Isaak sued the state in 2006 and Jenniffer Ann Spencer sued the following year. Both inmates, who were born with male anatomy but consider themselves female, contended they were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment because they were denied treatment for gender identity disorder.

Spencer was serving time on a 2000 conviction for possession of a stolen car and escape when she cut off her own testicles with a disposable razor blade in 2004 an apparent effort to rid her body of testosterone. Spencer survived the self-castration, and prison doctors prescribed testosterone replacement therapy - refusing to prescribe the estrogen Spencer wanted.

Isaak, who is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, said she was also compelled to remove her own testicles with a razor in 2004 after the state failed to diagnose and treat her disorder. Even then, Isaak said in the lawsuit, she went without the estrogen treatment she wanted, and a year after self-castrating she amputated the tip of her penis with a razor blade.

The state cited Isaak's birth gender and schizophrenia diagnosis when it denied her female hormones and a surgical sex change. In Spencer's case, the state said a diagnosis of gender identity disorder wasn't warranted and that Spencer had lied about living as a woman and taking birth control pills before her incarceration.

These are convicted felons--and a judge orders the state to provide them with medical treatment to assist them with self-inflicted sex changes. What do you suppose the chances are that judges are going to order the "government option" to cover this?