From: Steve Schoettmer
Elizabethtown
Tuesday our Indiana State Senate made it clear that the majority of them will allow parental rights to Hoosiers as long as they personally agree with your decisions. Thirty-six out of 50 senators voted to pass Senate Bill 480, which will ban doctors from treating minors with gender-affirming care even when their parents have agreed this is the best choice. All those who voted for this bill are Republicans. This seems very strange considering they are quite vocal about being pro-parental rights, yet didn’t hesitate to strip those rights away from a small group of people simply because they didn’t agree with them.
How can one tell that their decision was based on personal opinion? Let’s look at the Parents’ Bill of Rights for Indiana that can be found at in.gov, page 42. It clearly maps out when a parent’s authority to make medical conditions for their children can be challenged. It states “As a general rule, parental decisions are challenged when decisions place the child at significant risk of serious harm.”
Multiple practicing Hoosier doctors testified to the senators that this treatment is lifesaving and betters the life of the child. As doctors literally take a vow to “do no harm”, there is not a case here that these children are at a “significant risk of serious harm”. But interestingly enough, the senators chose to listen to the medical testimonies of those who were brought in from out of state and made the claims that, yes, serious harm is a factor. But of course isn’t there always that one dentist who disagrees with the other four? And it typically is easier to testify against the majority of those in your field when you are paid to do so. How very typical that Indiana’s Republican senators would prefer to listen to the testimony of out-of-state doctors who are paid to justify their own opinions than Hoosiers from major medical associations.
It all becomes even more confusing when Indiana’s House GOP passed a bill out of committee that advanced “parental rights” and targeted Department of Child Services policies for transgender children. This bill that claims “parental rights” will protect parents, who don’t support their transgender children, from suffering allegations of abuse. It would bar DCS from removing a child from a home because their parents disagreed with the child’s desire to transition. Our representatives felt it imperative to protect these parental rights that can very well lead to abuse and place a “child at significant risk of serious harm”. The House also cited “parental rights” with House Bill 1608, which will require teachers to out students to their parents if they display characteristics that might make them transgender.
At the end of that day, do our elected GOP leaders actually believe in “parental rights”? Or is that merely a term they abandon when they disagree with the majority of medical professionals and desire to supersede the parent’s choice?
