An Alabama bill moved forward Wednesday to make it illegal for a doctor to prescribe or perform various transgender medical services on children. The House Judiciary Committee approved the Senate-passed legislation and it will now move to the state's House of Representatives.

“Adults are free to do what they want to do, but this is to protect children,” said Rep. Wes Allen, the Republican who sponsored the bill.

“It is not good to give these medications to these children, and I consider it to where it would be abuse to give these long-term drugs to these children,” he said.

If passed, any type of puberty blockers, hormone treatment, gender-changing surgery, or any other transgender service for people 18 years old or younger would be punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Opponents of the bill believe that such decisions should be left to families and doctors. There are similar bills across the U.S. that are being considered by state legislatures.

“We’re not supposed to be here substituting our judgment for the person that’s closest to that child, and I personally believe that this legislation doesn’t protect children, it endangers them, and it also endangers their families,” said Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, has publicly opposed the bill.

“Today, Alabama has chosen, against the best advice of leading doctors across the country, to restrict and criminalize critically important care that transgender youth need desperately. This decision greatly restricts the rights of parents and medical providers to make health care decisions on a case-by-case basis, with the goal of reducing the physical and emotional distress experienced by many transgender children,” Carmarion Anderson-Harvey, Alabama director for the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement.