(LifeSiteNews) — While parents and other citizens are rightly concerned with the curricula in schools and the books in their libraries, another threat to parental rights and the wellbeing of minors exists in “school-based health centers.”
The Daily Signal highlights an issue with one such proposal in Maine, where a high school would operate a center that could give out abortifacient birth control.
The Maine School Administrative District 11 would “provide confidential ‘mental health, reproductive health, and substance use’ care to minors who ‘demonstrate decision-making capacity,'” according to The Daily Signal.
While the district does not currently plan to offer transgender drugs, the news outlet notes that Maine law allows 16-year-olds to get these substances without parental approval.
Some may assume that the health centers must get parental consent before prescribing birth control. After all, while a school could be empowered to provide emergency first aid, such as if a student drops a beaker and gets cut during chemistry class, doesn’t it need to get permission before handing out birth control?
Not likely.
Stand for Health Freedom founder Leah Wilson spoke to LifeSiteNews last year about how these health centers minimize parental involvement.
She said the centers use “pre-consent” to operate without parental involvement, “which is simply a one-page consent form being sent home at the beginning of the year. And there’s language such as this that gives consent for your child to see any and all health care providers in this health center.” The pre-consent opens the door for “very dynamic encounters” that may take place “without further parental knowledge or notification being required,” as LifeSiteNews previously reported.
This, in fact, is what also HealthReach Community Health Centers does with their forms. The medical provider would operate the center inside the Maine high school, as it does at other schools in the state.
A sample “general consent” form opens the door for the same sort of blanket permission Wilson warned about.
Others do offer transgender drugs. As the industry already operates with lax standards and under “standards” developed under ethically dubious means, it follows that schools would be happy to help inject a child with transgender drugs without their parents knowing. After all, schools already try to hide a child’s transgender identification from parents, with some teachers offering special closets for students to get clothes for crossdressing during the school day.
As The Daily Signal reports:
…the San Lorenzo High School-Based Health Center in Ashland, California, offers access to “gender-affirming care,” including “chest binders, shapewear, etc.”; “information and counseling about transitioning”; and “gender-affirming hormone therapy and other types of medical transitioning services.”
Chicago Public Schools is also happy to help minor students as young as 12 get birth control and other “reproductive health” services, including abortion.
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The school district also has an explicit policy of hiding information from parents.
For example, a sample form about supporting gender-confused students, states:
School staff shall not disclose information that may reveal a student’s transgender status or gender nonconforming presentation to others. Therefore, given the sensitive nature of the information, when speaking with parents, guardians, other staff members, or third parties, school staff should not disclose a student’s preferred name, pronoun, or other confidential information pertaining to the student’s transgender or gender nonconforming status without the student’s permission, unless authorized to do so by the Chicago Board of Education’s Law Department.
In a “common pushback” document, the school district asserts students “have a right to privacy about their gender identity. It is never okay to talk to someone about a student’s gender identity, even their parent or caregiver, unless they have given explicit permission to do so.”
The same philosophy applies to killing preborn babies in the womb.
“There is no lower age limit and no parental notice requirement for minors accessing abortion care [sic] in Illinois,” the Chicago Public Schools website states. “By law, Medicaid cannot send home a bill or explanation of benefits for sexual health services.”
In other words, there is no way parents will find out what their kids are getting from the school. This is even dangerous because if someone has an adverse reaction to a vaccine or birth control given to them at school, parents have no way of knowing. They cannot communicate this information to emergency room staff, putting the child in danger of further harm.
However, there are ways to push back against these health centers to ensure children are protected.
First, focus on the medical problems of parents not knowing what medicine or injections their kids are getting. Even parents who might be fine in general with vaccines or birth control should still be concerned that a nurse is giving their child something without their knowledge.
Second, see if there is a way to reach the good goal of ensuring kids have access to wellness checks and basic medical care in a way that still protects parental consent. The general idea behind these centers is that some parents may not have time to take off work to take their kids for regular checkups, and this makes it more accessible to kids in lower-income or rural areas. But these goals could be accomplished through health clinics at the school on weekends or evenings, for example, when parents can be involved.
Finally, educate other parents about what a general consent form allows and see if there is a way to change the form so that consent is needed for vaccines or other provisions.
Parents and children deserve better than secretive medical care, and schools should not provide it.
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