Sun., September 19, 2021,
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled Friday that doctors can prescribe puberty-blocking drugs to children under 16, overturning a lower court’s decision that a judge’s approval should be needed.
Appeals judges said the High Court was wrong to rule last year that children considering gender reassignment are unlikely to be able to give informed consent to medical treatment involving drugs that delay puberty. The December 2020 ruling said because of the experimental nature of the drugs, clinics should seek court authorization before starting such treatment.
The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the U.K.’s main gender identity development service for children, appealed against that ruling.
On Friday the Court of Appeal agreed with the trust. The judges said it was “inappropriate” for the High Court to have given the guidance and said it was up to doctors to “exercise their judgment” about whether their patients can properly consent.
The trust welcomed the decision, saying it “affirms that it is for doctors, not judges, to decide on the capacity of under-16s to consent to medical treatment.”
Hormone blockers are drugs that can pause the development of puberty, and are sometimes prescribed to help children with gender dysphoria by giving them more time to consider their options.
The lawsuit against the Tavistock clinic was brought by two claimants including Keira Bell, who was prescribed hormone blockers at 16 and argued that the clinic should have challenged her more over her decision to transition to a male.
Lawyers for Bell and the other claimant argued that children going through puberty are “not capable of properly understanding the nature and effects of hormone blockers.”
Bell, now 24, said she was disappointed by the court of appeal ruling and would seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Associated Press
Jerry Cornelius
Another of Moorcock's creations is Jerry Cornelius, a hip urban adventurer of ambiguous gender; the same characters featured in each of several Cornelius books. These books were satirical of modern times, including the Vietnam War, and continued to feature another variation of the multiverse theme.[29] The first Jerry Cornelius book, The Final Programme (1968), was made into a feature film in 1973.[32] Its story line is identical to two of the Elric stories: The Dreaming City and The Dead Gods' Book. Since 1998, Moorcock has returned to Cornelius in a series of new stories: The Spencer Inheritance, The Camus Connection, Cheering for the Rockets, and Firing the Cathedral, which was concerned with 9/11. All four novellas were included in the 2003 edition of The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius. Moorcock's most recent Cornelius stories, "Modem Times", appeared in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume 2, published in 2008, this was expanded in 2011 as "Modem Times 2.0". Additionally, a version of Cornelius also appeared in Moorcock's 2010 Doctor Who novel The Coming of the Terraphiles. Pegging the President (PS. 2018), The Fracking Factory (on FB, 2018) are two recent novellas and further stories are forthcoming.
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