A week after vetoing a bill that would have protected children from doctor-prescribed sterilizations, Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) is trying to sell the illusion that he cares about protecting children.

On Friday, the Republican governor signed an executive order supposedly banning children under the age of 18 from undergoing gender transition surgeries, a week after he vetoed a bill that would have done exactly that and also would have protected children from taking experimental and potentially sterilizing drugs in the form of cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers. The bill would have also required that athletes compete in sports programs consistent with their biological sex.

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DeWine's executive order is nothing more than a case of a politician trying to have his cake and eat it too. The initial veto of the bill was a cowardly surrender to the transgender lobby, which has propagated the perfidious notion that children who suffer from gender dysphoria must be subjected to life-altering and irreversible drugs and procedures or they will commit suicide.

The executive order does nothing to restore any of the basic protections for young Ohioans that the vetoed bill would have. All it does is say that hospitals and doctors cannot use a knife to mutilate the bodies of children. Instead, they must use prescription drugs to disrupt and damage the natural functions of their developing bodies.

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DeWine doesn't care about protecting children from a predatory medical industry that is all too eager to turn young people into lifelong patients, nor does he care to protect young women athletes from competing against physically stronger men. If he did, he would have signed the initial bill.

His executive order is just a pathetic attempt to save face.