NL-I’m not sure how I feel about this… I don’t like the idea of my tax dollars paying for a convicted murderer to have an expensive operation (no matter what that operation is) But then do sick prisoners not deserve medical care? Should there be a list if what they can have and what they can’t? I guess what bothers me most is that good hard working people can’t afford these operations so they don’t get them, but someone who murders a person does… How do you feel about it?
From Cnn.com
(CNN) — A federal court judge on Tuesday ordered Massachusetts officials to provide sex-reassignment surgery for a transsexual prison inmate, after determining that it was the only adequate treatment for the inmate’s mental illness.
The state’s Department of Correction said Michelle Kosilek, previously known as Robert, who is serving a life sentence without parole for murdering his wife in 1990, has a gender identity disorder.
She attempted to castrate herself and tried to commit suicide twice while incarcerated in an all-male prison in Norfolk, according to a court order.
"We are very happy with the ruling, of course. We are still reviewing the opinion and we anticipate the Department of Corrections will follow Judge Wolf’s order and promptly arrange for Michelle Kosilek to receive her treatment," Kosilek’s attorney Joseph Sulman said Tuesday.
Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf ruled that sex reassignment surgery is the "only adequate treatment" for Kosilek, and "that there is no less intrusive means to correct the prolonged violation of Kosilek’s Eighth Amendment right to adequate medical care."
"This is the first decision in which the court has ordered a prison to provide sex reassignment surgery as the necessary medical treatment for a transsexual inmate," said Ben Klein, senior attorney with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in Boston.