I am not saying that the judge’s decision is beyond all reason - particularly as he is merely allowing the suit to go forward at this point. Still, the implications are troubling.
I can allow that to completely and totally deny access to healthcare can be cruel and unusual punishment. But it would seem to me that there is a level of healthcare that might be optimum, but whose denial does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Probably hard to know exactly where to draw the line, but I kind of tend to think that sex change operations are safely over the side.
Furthermore, there is the money issue. The idea that because this guy murdered someone the taxpayers are required to shell out enormous amounts of money for his medical care is an abhorrent one. I wonder about the legal and constitutional issues involved in the government saying that he has the freedom to have the surgery like anyone else, but that he has to pay for it like anyone else. I guess his counterargument would be that the government is preventing him from having enough money to pay for it by keeping him incarcerated. But that may not actually be true in a given circumstance.
I believe there have been similar issues raised with regards to organ transplants for murderers, and I imagine the issues there are identical. (Possibly even worse, as the supply of donated organs is limited).
Gender disorders are some of the most deadly disorders there are. They have the same suicide rate as untreated bipolar disorder- around 20%. It’s one of the most painful phychological issues a person can have. Additionally, psychological counseling and drugs do not offer much hope. For them, it is the wrong body that is causing these problems, not the mind’s reaction to them. Thus sex change operations and other steps towards living as the opposite sex are really the only options these people have to live phychologically stable lives.
We’d never leave a schitzophrenic untreated in prison. Why would we do the same for someone who suffers from something just as real, except that this disorder has moral implications for some people and the treatment is a bit messier?
Yeah, but there’s one difference here: we also would try to provide treatment to a schizophrenic who was free, but indigent. We would not provide gender reassignment surgery to a similarly situated person.
It would disturb me if we were providing substantially superior health care to prisoners than we are to law-abiding people who simply don’t have money to pay for it themselves.
And then what happens, he (she?) gets transferred to a female prison? If he (she) doesn’t, suicide is probably the least of his (her) worries.
IANAD, but I can imagine that “gender disorder” is probably one of the most difficult “disorders” to diagnose as well. I’m all for psych counselling of prisoners. Gender reasignment surgery is beyond the pale. What’s next, face lifts for older prisoners???
Actually, it’s one of the easiest. Who would ask for a sex change operation- and torture themselves over it- if they wern’t pretty darn serious about it. I doubt the prisoners are going to be lining up to get their genitals turned inside out just to make trouble for the guards. Generally sufferers realize that something is wrong in childhood, and often spend their entire life hiding because it could cause them to lose their family and friends, Plus the ability walk down the street without feeling afraid for their lives.
Yes, it would be providing better care than what is availible on the outside, but I think that what goes on in the outside is wrong. Services for transgender people should be covered to some degree on any health plan, and health care ought to be avaible to everyone. I think it’s sad that people are losing their lives because our health system refuses to acknowldge this issue because it offends some people’s moral beliefs. Although I can’t figure out what is immoral about it, sex changes and gender issues in general freak people out, so people have to suffer so that the majority doesn’t ever have to questions their ideas about gender. This is going to be the next big human rights issue.
And it’s a good fight.
And no, it shouldn’t cost half a million dollars. Twenty thousand for everything- including a lifetime of hormones (but no electrolysis, prisoners ought to have time to shave) and pre-op counseling. It’s nothing more than a good heart condition would cost. Would you live the guy with a heart condition to rot until he has a heart attack and dies? Then why would you do that to someone with a mental disorder?
I would expect that anyone who is a murderer probably has a lot of psychological problems. But I’ll defer to a real psychologist or doctor on the issue of how difficult or easy it is to diagnose “gender disorder”, especially in a convicted murderer.
As for the cost, again I’ll defer to an expert. But a good friend of mine had his appendix removed a few weeks ago. No complications, in and out in < 24 hrs. The bill was about $25k. Somehow, I expect a sex change opperation to be a bit more costly than an appendectomy. And 10x or so seems not out of line.
But that’s really here nor there. Prisoners should be afforded life saving medical care. Regardless of the suicide rate (and you’ll have to give us a cite or clarify the “20%” you suggested above), this is not life saving or even life preserving medical treatment. When and if the inmate is released, he can get as many sex change ops as he can handle.
Would you agree to pay for a face lift if the convict said he would get really upset and commit suicide unless he could get rid of the bags under his eyes?
I recommend Mr. Mark Brooks for a great big heaping helping of STFU.
Just when you thought you had heard every silly ass whine from some lifer who should be breaking rocks instead of filing lawsuits…
Don’t candidates for reassignment surgery have to spend a year living as a member of the opposite sex?
I don’t have to go into the implications of this for this guy.
I dunno. If you’re stuck in the general population of a state penitentiary for the rest of your life, and it turns out that you’re the prey rather than the predator, you just might regard a sex change and a comparatively safe women’s prison as preferable to getting regularly ass-raped for the rest of your life.
Well, I’m going to debate this one in the world as it is, not in the world as it hypothetically ought to be. Sorry.
If he truly comitted murder, I would have no problem watching him die.
I think paying 500k for an elective surgery for a prisoner is insane. It breaks my heart he is ‘mixed up’ but maybe if had not murdered someone he would be able to help himself.
Individuals convicted of a felony are legally deprived of certain rights held by ordinary citizens. Gun ownership or eligibility to vote are withheld from people convicted of high crimes. Those who are incarcerated have no reasonable expectation of rights and services equivalent to citizens who have never been convicted of a felony.
How many convicted murderers commit suicide because of remorse over their crime or depression resulting from being jailed? If the indices of this group are no greater than those who are affected by perceived physical gender mismatch, there is no risk increase for this population. Penal system management needs to closely examine the purported need for half-million dollar surgeries in order to correct any sadness felt by people who have destroyed the lives of others.
He does say he wants to be tranferred to women’s prison.
Covicted murderers not getting the benifit of the doubt, I have to look at this with a great deal of suspicion. It seems like a dodge to do his time in an easier enviroment.
To be honest, I think the guy is just jerking everyone around. I don’t think he’s serious. And even if he IS serious, I don’t think anyone will actually clear him for the surgery. A convicted murderer doesn’t seem like the best canidate for gender re-assignment surgery. Isn’t there some psychological screening that must be passed before a surgeon will agree to do the procedure?
You are missing my point. I don’t care in the least what percentage of murderers commit suicide in prison when denied any kind of elective surgery.
The implied threat of suicide for a lifer denied a sex change operation is a form of emotional blackmail which does not affect me at all. Whether or not Brooks is making such a threat does not interest me at all.
People in prison should not have an expectation of a level of health care that is superior to innocent people outside prison. Providing such a level is a waste of resources. Brooks does not have the right to expect the taxpayers of his state to pay for cosmetic surgery.
And it doesn’t matter if he is unhappy as a result of being denied this. I don’t want murderers in prison to be happy. I want them to be unhappy. I want them to regret what they did that got them into prison.
Maybe, in this instance, Brooks will sit in prison for the next few years saying to himself, “I better behave myself in prison and hope for early parole. That way, I can start saving up for my sex change operation.”
Earlier in the thread, SimonX mentioned that trans-sexuals have to live as their chosen gender for a year before the operation. It is entirely possible that Brooks wants to be transferred to a women’s prison on the excuse of doing this, hoping for easier time.
Maybe Brooks really is a pre-op trans-sexual. Maybe he has just come up with a half-baked scheme to do some easy time in a women’s prison. Maybe he is just an asshole who likes to gum up the works with stupid lawsuits.
It doesn’t matter. In no instance should he be given what he is asking for, at taxpayer expense.