Republican Ohio governor Mike DeWine issued an “emergency” executive order Friday banning child gender-transition surgeries after receiving intense backlash last week for vetoing a bill with a broader but similar mandate.

Dubbed the SAFE Act, the original bill that DeWine rejected would have also prohibited physicians from prescribing cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking medicine to kids. The legislation also banned men in women’s sports, offering a legal recourse to students forced to play against the opposite sex.

The new order would bar physicians from performing gender-transition surgeries, such as mastectomies and hysterectomies, on kids in Ohio’s hospitals and health-care facilities.

“A week has gone by, and I still feel just as firmly as I did that day,” DeWine said at a press conference Friday, defending his decision to veto the broader ban. “I believe the parents, not the government, should be making these crucial decisions for their children.”

DeWine’s veto was condemned by GOP presidential candidates and conservative activists, who called it cowardly and urged the Republican-dominated Ohio legislature to override it. Prominent detransitioner Chloe Cole accused DeWine of kowtowing to corporate lobbying from the Cleveland Clinic and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

Governor Ron DeSantis decried DeWine’s move, touting his record of shielding children from such procedures and protecting women’s sports. Former president Trump wrote on TRUTH Social that DeWine had “fallen to the Radical Left.”

“What was he thinking,” Trump said. “The bill would have stopped child mutilation, and prevented men from playing in women’s sports. Legislature will hopefully overturn. Do it FAST! !”

Former college swimmer Riley Gaines called out DeWine for slow walking the bill for many days before he finally vetoed it. It had been on his desk since December 15, when it passed the GOP-controlled state legislature.

In vetoing the bill, DeWine joined a group of Republican governors who have shied away from the transgender issue, such as former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who vetoed a ban on the gender medicalization of minors in 2021. Utah governor Spencer Cox and Indiana governor Eric Holcomb also shot down their states’ respective trans-athlete bills last year.

In his initial justification, DeWine said the decision to give a child life-altering, potentially sterilizing drugs and procedures should be left up to the child’s parents and doctors. DeWine said at a press conference that follow-up rules would be coming regarding the surgeries for minors, saying, “I truly believe that we can address a number of goals in House Bill 68 by administrative rules that will have likely a better chance of surviving judicial review and being adopted.”

The newly vetoed bill could still go into effect if at least 60 percent of the state legislature votes to override the governor’s decision. Ohio lawmakers have started the process of overriding the veto, the Daily Signal reported.

“Speaking hypothetically, a potential veto [override] would have no potential effect on the emergency rules issued today,” DeWine Press Secretary Dan Tierney told the outlet.