Washington (CNN) A South Dakota state lawmaker said Tuesday that he regrets recently comparing doctors who assist in the gender reassignment process for transgender youth in the state to Nazi doctor experiments that occurred during the Holocaust.

Republican state Rep. Fred Deutsch first made the comments during an interview last week with the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group that lobbies on a number of issues both cultural and political from "a biblical worldview." In the interview, the lawmaker discussed a bill he's sponsoring that would make it a misdemeanor for physicians or any other medical professionals to perform gender reassignment surgeries on minors or to provide patients 16 and younger with hormones, even if the minor is emancipated.

"Well, you know, if you care about kids I think you have to prioritize them. And, you know, in South Dakota we don't allow mutilation of our children -- I don't care if it's doctors, I don't care if it's parents. ... These kids on the internet, they share these pictures of themselves that just blow you away -- of all these surgical scars and it's terrible. That should not ever be allowed," Deutsch said.

He continued: "To me, that's a crime against humanity, when these procedures are done by these so-called doctors, you know, that dance on the edge of medicine. I just don't think it should be done. I think -- you know, I'm the son of a Holocaust survivor. I've had family members killed in Auschwitz. And I've seen the pictures of the bizarre medical experiments. I don't want that to happen to our kids. And that's what's going on right now."

Deutsch said in a statement to CNN on Tuesday that he regrets making the comparison.

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