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Bre Danvers-Kidman is an artist, activist and attorney who became the first openly non-binary person to run for U.S. Senate in 2020. They currently serve as the executive director of MaineTransNet.
When LD 227, An Act Regarding Legally Protected Health Care Activity in the State, goes into effect on Aug. 9 it won’t change what types of health care are available in Maine. It will, however, help Maine protect health care providers, patients and access to essential care within its own borders.
In fact, a better title for LD 227 might have been An Act To Allow Maine Legislators to Make Maine’s Laws.
The law would likely escape notice but for the mention of health care for transgender people and abortion care — both of which have been legally available in Maine for some time. LD 227 does not create any new rights or access to this care. It protects established, standard-of-care medical care that is already legal in Maine and, most critically, helps ensure our local providers and health care infrastructure aren’t negatively affected by hostile laws in other states.
Several other states have enacted laws that ban best practice medical care — some even seeking to reach outside their own borders into states like Maine to criminalize health care providers and patients for seeking care that is legal, safe, effective and medically necessary. LD 227 is consistent with Gov. Janet Mills’ July 2022 executive order directing law enforcement to deprioritize these politically motivated attacks on Maine’s health care infrastructure. By formally acting to protect against the overreach of other state legislatures, LD 227 ensures that Maine’s doctors and patients can’t be arrested for following Maine’s laws.
Disinformation and overly heated rhetoric permeated the discourse prior to the passage of LD 227 — so much so that lawmakers received bomb threats — making it important to say: LD 227 does not provide protection for violations of existing Maine laws. If an action was illegal in Maine prior to the passage of LD 227, it remains illegal under the new law. LD 227 also does not create any protection for malpractice or care provided in contradiction to well-established research and guidelines for safe and effective medical treatment.
Health care for transgender people is life-saving care, and consists of a range of options including mental health care, medical care and social services. This care is evidence based, individualized, age appropriate, gradual in nature and necessarily includes informed consent.
Every major medical association supports transition related health care for transgender adults and youth, as it has been shown to result in better overall health outcomes for people who need it. Many primary care physicians provide this care and, at a time where Maine’s health care infrastructure remains strained, the last thing we need is to have our health care providers criminalized because out-of-state politicians have decided they are entitled to determine what is legal and acceptable in Maine.
The threat to Maine’s patients and providers is real. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has already begun interfering in other states by demanding access to patient records from Seattle Children’s Hospital in Washington state.
The truth of the matter is politicians are not qualified to make individual health care decisions; those decisions are meant to be made privately between a patient and their health care provider. LD 227 simply protects Maine’s patients’ and providers’ ability to make those decisions from the threat of out-of-state political interference.
We all have limited time and energy, and this year’s election cycle seems intent on sucking up as much of it as possible with divisive rhetoric, but it is truly not warranted here. LD 227 solidifies that the only state legislature deciding what is legal in Maine is the one we elected.
Surely everyone can agree on that.
