28-05-2025
Doctors group challenging constitutionality of Alberta transgender law
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A group representing Canada's doctors is challenging the constitutionality of Alberta's legislation banning certain gender-affirming treatments for children under the age of 16, arguing it violates their Charter right to freedom of conscience.
The Canadian Medical Association says it filed the challenge Wednesday in Alberta Court of King's Bench. The CMA says the move is meant to protect the relationship between patients and doctors when it comes to making treatment decisions.
"This is a historic and unprecedented government intrusion into the physician-patient relationship and requires doctors to follow the law rather than clinical guidelines, the needs of patients and their own conscience," the association said in a statement.
The legislation was part of a trio of bills affecting transgender people that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government passed last year.
The association is specifically challenging the bill that blocks doctors from prescribing hormone therapy and puberty blockers to children under 16 and bans gender-affirming surgeries for those under 18.
The other bills ban transgender women from competing in amateur women's sports and make it a requirement for children under 16 to receive parental consent to change their names or pronouns at school.
Smith has said the medical treatment legislation is necessary to protect children and ensure they don't make major decisions before they reach adulthood.
Dr. Jake Donaldson, who is one of three Alberta-based doctors involved in the court challenge, said the law has put him and other doctors in a "state of moral crisis."
"It is encroaching upon sort of the autonomy of physicians and our ability to provide what we believe is best, and individualized, evidence-based care for patients," the Calgary family doctor said in an interview.
"It forces me to sort of stand on the sidelines and refuse to provide care to patients who would otherwise, in all likelihood, significantly benefit from it."
Donaldson said he has roughly 40 young patients who receive the kinds of treatment the law outlaws, although an exemption clause in the legislation means those patients aren't being cut off.
"From the standpoint of gender-affirming care, what we are able to do in the medical world is help people," Donaldson said.
"There's good evidence behind what we're doing, [and] there are guidelines that we follow. Nobody's making decisions willy-nilly."
