An Oregon judge's ruling last week that the government overreached on transgender medical care for minors was about process, not policy, former federal prosecutor Doug Burns told Newsmax on Sunday.
"It's interesting because it's really more of a ruling that says you didn't follow procedure," Burns said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America Weekend."
"That's a point that any lawyer would make, saying they didn't really say that you can't do it," he added. "You just didn't give the public notice and an opportunity to weigh in. That's what it really was."
Federal Judge Mustafa Kasubhai last week ruled that the government overreached by issuing a declaration labeling treatments such as puberty blockers and surgeries as unsafe and ineffective for minors experiencing gender dysphoria.
The ruling centered on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. not following proper administrative procedures when issuing the declaration in December.
The declaration also warned that doctors providing such treatments could be excluded from federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Burns said the court's decision did not address whether the treatments themselves should be allowed, but instead focused on the lack of required public input.
He also pointed to the sharp divide in how the issue is framed.
"One person's gender-affirming care, it's like a nice euphemism, I guess I would call it, versus mutilation," Burns said.
Burns added that the issue has become a broader cultural debate that lawmakers, not judges, should handle.
"It's a hot-button, obviously culture war issue that really doesn't belong being adjudicated in courts," he said. "It should be in the halls of Congress, in my opinion."
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