The American Medical Association’s first out gay president pledges to fight trans healthcare bans LGBTQ NATION https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/05/the-american-medical-associations-first-out-gay-president-pledges-to-fight-trans-healthcare-bans/By Daniel Villarreal
Sunday, May 14, 2023
EXCERPTS Below: (Click NEWS Link above to view entire story)
Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld ...a U.S. Navy combat veteran who will be inaugurated as the American Medical Association’s (AMA) first out gay president on June 13 ...he says the organization “simply will not stand” for legislation targeting abortion and gender-affirming care. He has pledged... “every avenue available” to oppose such laws.
“We see the attack on reproductive care, reproductive access, and transgender healthcare as a continuum of government overreach into patient-physician decision making,” Ehrenfeld told The Washington Blade. The AMA, whose mission is to advocate “the art and science of medicine [for] the betterment of public health,” represents at least 271,660 members, including physicians and medical students.
“We simply will not stand for the government coming in to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship [by passing bills that] outlaw what we know to be appropriate, evidence-based clinical guidelines-based care,” Ehrenfeld said.
“We have a lot of backseat drivers trying to tell doctors what to do,” Ehrenfeld said of bans on gender-affirming care for minors that have been passed in 18 states and introduced in 13 other states. He said these “backseat drivers” include “insurance companies who put up barriers around prior authorization for getting approval for care and services.”
