Lawsuit: South Carolina DSS and Greenville Hospital System and Medical University of South Carolina UPDATED

This is what happens when government makes health decisions. This is beyond cruel.  How Could You? Our prayers go out to the adoptee and adoptive family.

” It’s a lawsuit that is raising some eyebrows across South Carolina. The state of South Carolina and two hospitals are being sued after being accused of performing an unnecessary sex change surgery.

Pamela and John Mark Crawford are the parents of M.C, who they adopted as a toddler. According to the Crawford’s and the lawsuit, M.C. was born with an intersex condition, which the Crawford’s were aware of at the time of adoption.

However, the child was under the care of the South Carolina Department of Social Services when the lawsuit claims doctors elected to have surgery on the then 16-month old child, turning M.C. into a girl.

The child, who is now eight years old, identifies himself as boy.

“This was a child who wanted to do the things that are stereotypically male. So the tree climbing the bug catching, always assembling spy gear,” says John Mark Crawford, M.C.’s Father.

The lawsuit says doctors with the Greenville Hospital System and Medical University of South Carolina had no right to have this surgery because the child was not mature enough to make their own decision.

“When the state decided M.C. should be a girl and then decided to enforce that with irreversible genital surgery, they violated his civil rights to privacy,” says Anne Tamar- MAttis, Advocates for Informed Choice.

The Crawford’s say they want this lawsuit to serve as awareness to an issue that has been kept in the dark for years. They don’t want other families to have to endure the struggles they have.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, Advocates for Informed Choice and Janet, Jenner & Suggs and Steptoe & Johnson LLP filed the lawsuit.

WACH Fox reached out to the South Carolina Department of Social Services for a comment. but calls were not immediately returned.”

DSS, SC hospitals sued over gender assignment surgery

[Midlands Connect 5/14/13 by Fraendy Clervaud and Associated Press]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

 

Update: “”The doctors knew that sex assignment surgeries on infants … poses a significant risk of imposing a gender that is ultimately rejected by the patient,” attorneys claim in the suit.

Instead, the lawyers argue, the optional surgery should have been delayed until the child was older and identified as male or female.

“That was a permanent, irreversible decision that was not theirs to make,” attorney Ken Suggs said Tuesday of the lawsuits, which he said are the first of their kind in the U.S.

At the time of adoption, the Crawfords said they knew their child was born with ambiguous genitalia and raised the child as a girl starting in 2006. But about a year ago, the Crawfords say their now-8-year-old child told them he wanted to be raised as a boy. They supported the decision, allowing him to cut his hair short and wear boys’ clothes.

The Crawfords said their family is adjusting, their son is happy and has the support of his community and school. But they chose to sue to keep other families from going through similar struggles.

“He keeps us smiling, but it’s heartbreaking when he asks us questions about his body,” Mark Crawford said. “We don’t want him to become bitter.”

The state lawsuit accuses the Medical University of South Carolina — where the surgery was performed — and Greenville Hospital — where the child was born — of negligence medical malpractice for not getting the patient’s informed consent before surgery and failing to warn of potential problems resulting from it. At 16 months old, the suit alleges, the child was too young to make such a decision, one that could have waited until years later.

That complaint accuses state Social Services officials of failing to protect the child from the consequences of the surgery. A federal lawsuit also accuses doctors and state officials of violating the child’s civil rights by performing the surgery without consent.

Spokeswomen for the hospitals did not immediately comment on the suit and the Department of Social Services declined to comment.

The child is healthy, but the Crawfords’ lawyers say there are medical issues that can result from the surgery, including sterilization or the loss of sexual function.

“These doctors wanted to play God,” said Alesdair Ittelson, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which helped bring the lawsuit. About one in every 2,000 children is born “intersex,” or with ambiguous genitalia, according to Anne Tamar-Mattis, an attorney with Advocates for Informed Choice, a group that supports intersex children.

Dr. Margaret Moon, a pediatrician who teaches at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, said while it might be easier on a family to have such surgeries performed when a child is young, ultimately it’s best to wait until the child’s own gender identity begins to develop.

“We know that it’s probably better to wait and let the child make some choices, but it’s at a cost to the family,” Moon said. “The sadness of this child was that he was physically forced in to a gender that sort of didn’t fit. … He’s going to have a hard time.””

SC couple sues hospital over adopted child’s sex assignment surgery

[Clarion Ledger 5/14/13 by Associated Press]