How Can the “Evangelical Right” Promote Parental Rights While at the Same Time Supporting Child Trafficking?

The Parental Rights Foundation sent out a newsletter to its subscribers last week from their president, William A. Estrada, with an article titled: "Parents Are Winning. That’s Why Opponents Are Turning Us Into Bogeymen." It was a response to an article published in Salon by Kathryn Joyce titled: "Parental rights started on the Christian fringe — now it's the GOP's winning issue." Having covered the issue of "parental rights" for going on 8 years now, mainly through our MedicalKidnap.com platform, this is a topic I am very familiar with. And while I agree with Estrada's assertion that the parental rights issues cross ideological lines and should not be strictly a "right-wing evangelical" issue, I am also familiar with Kathryn Joyce's work, and in particular her criticisms of the evangelical right's position on international adoptions, and the whole "Orphan Care" movement among evangelicals, which is basically a child trafficking movement, because it is mainly funded by the U.S. Government. "Orphan care" includes not only international adoptions, but participation in the U.S. Foster Care system, the #1 pipeline for pedophiles and child sex trafficking. What is Joyce's main point in her article? It is stated right in her sub-heading: "Right-wing Christians have pushed for parental control over education for years. Suddenly it's the GOP's main focus." It's all about public education, and who gets to make the decisions on curriculum and other issues associated with public education. Is not the solution for evangelicals obvious?? STOP ASKING THE GOVERNMENT TO EDUCATE AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND EDUCATE THEM YOURSELVES!! Problem solved.

Doctors and First Responders Losing Custody of Their Children Due to COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 continues to keep people in isolation, but it is also being used to separate mother’s and father’s from their children. March 25, 2020, MedicalKidnap.com brought you the story of a mother who had her two children removed from her home for the simple fact that she worked in a healthcare clinic. Armed with a removal order, signed by a judge, a Child Protection Services (CPS) social worker and police showed up at this Oklahoma mother’s home at 10:00PM to remove her two daughters. Since our original story, more and more families are speaking out about how they have to fight to keep custody of their children when ex-spouses use the Coronavirus in an attempt to gain sole custody. In most cases, the parent, doctors, firefighters and other first responders have no idea the ex-spouse is filing a motion, petitioning the court for sole custody, until it is too late. In a story by Megan Twohey, published by The New York Times, April 7, 2020, several parents spoke out about how ex-spouses are using COVID-19 to separate them from their children. Is this the way first responders fighting the COVID-19 pandemic should be treated?

Children Being Medically Kidnapped from Parents Due to Coronavirus Scare

With the amount of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. rising every day, the majority of states have issued mandatory social isolation, but does this include isolation from your own children?   Two mothers have recently spoken out about how the Coronavirus pandemic has been used to take away their children against their will, and some judges are ordering the removal of children due to potential exposure to the Coronavirus with their parents. A mother in Oklahoma shared a post on Facebook on March 21, stating, “The police showed up on my doorstep at 10 PM and took my kids from me because I WORK IN A CLINIC.” According to the mother, and court documents shared on the social media site, a judge signed off on an ex parte hearing, approving the Emergency Motion to Modify Custody and for Pick-Up Order Due to Respondent Exposure to Coronavirus. The mother sent this warning to first responders,  “Just a heads up to nurses, doctors, firefighters, police officers, and other first responders who have children and sneaky exes… watch your backs!”

California Parents Flood School Board Meeting – Demand Parental Rights Sanctuary Regarding Vaccines and Sex Education

This week the Murrieta Unified School District in Southern California saw hundreds of parents turn out for a school board meeting to protest the loss of parental rights when it comes to the issue of mandatory vaccines and the sexualization in sex education of their children without parental approval. They brought a proposal to make their community a "sanctuary city for parental rights," claiming that if illegal immigration can be protected by a sanctuary status, then so can parental rights. Reporter Michelle Mears was present, and published a report at the California Globe. "Hundreds of residents in a Southern California community swarmed a school board meeting Thursday night to speak out about the loss of parental rights in schools. Anxious parents, many with children in tow, students, pastors and doctors demanded the Murrieta Unified School District become the first sanctuary city for parental rights in California. For two hours people waited to speak out on the action item titled, 'To consider Proposal by Community Member to Become a Sanctuary School District.” Those in favor of the sanctuary status understood the trustees could not change the laws set by the state. However, their argument is, if illegal immigration can be protected by a sanctuary status then so can parental rights.' One of the highlights of the night was a reading of an affidavit by a nurse known on Facebook as "Sandra RN." Police attempted to block her efforts and remove her from the room, but when she stood up for her rights as she was being filmed, police backed down and allowed her to speak.

American Medical Association Advice: Mature 12-Year-Olds Can Consent to Vaccination Without Parents

At the recently concluded annual meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) in Chicago, AMA delegates adopted a doozy of a new policy. The powerful trade group agreed to develop model legislation that pressures state legislatures into allowing minors to “override refusenik parents on vaccination.” In 2000, the Supreme Court reasserted the fundamental right of parents to oversee the care, custody and control of their children, a right recognized by states until children reach age 18. Where vaccines are concerned, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act—passed in 1986—legally requires health care providers to distribute vaccine information materials to the parent or legal guardian of any child to whom the provider intends to administer a vaccine “prior to the administration of such vaccine” [emphasis added]. Does it trouble the AMA that its pronouncement goes against legal precedent as well as social custom? Apparently unconcerned about “chipping away at parental rights,” AMA representatives are gung-ho about the organization’s new policy position. Not only do they want minors as young as 12 to be able to consent to vaccination regardless of their parents’ “flawed beliefs”—while still expecting parents to pay for the vaccines—they also believe that doctors should be the ones declaring a child “mature enough” to consent to vaccination. A question that anyone familiar with the AMA’s history should be asking is, why would we trust the AMA to make such vital decisions in parents’ stead?

Parents’ Constitutional Right to Legal Representation When CPS Takes Their Kids Routinely Violated Leading to Greater Child Kidnappings by the State

Since we have started covering the medical kidnapping issue here at Health Impact News, we have frequently pointed out that when child protection social services (CPS) removes a child from their home, parents have fewer legal rights than rapists, murders, or terrorists. All it takes to have one's children seized by CPS is an anonymous call making a claim against the parents, or a doctor reporting the parents to CPS for not taking their advice and wanting a second opinion, etc. Since each child placed into foster care represents a huge monetary value to the state, the incentive to make sure parental rights are preserved is very low. Judges in Family Courts routinely abuse parental rights, including issuing gag orders against the parents in an attempt to stop them from sharing their stories with the media - a clear violation of the First Amendment. In most of these cases, the parents are either not represented with an attorney, or represented with an appointed attorney that only tries to reach a settlement, not fight for the parents' rights. While we agree with the late Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer that the child welfare system in the U.S. is too corrupt to reform and needs to be abolished, and with the former Director for the Baltimore City Department of Social Services Molly McGrath Tierney that the whole premise behind foster care is "a bad idea" and that instead "kids ought to be in families," there is some evidence that when parents have good legal representation at the very beginning when they are investigated by CPS, far fewer children are removed from their homes. That begs the question: why aren't most states providing proper legal representation of parents under investigation by CPS, which is in fact their Constitutional right? Richard Wexler, the Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR), and attorney Vivek S. Sankaran, Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and director of the Child Advocacy Law Clinic and the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic, have recently addressed this issue, and they give practical advice on how this situation can be remedied immediately.

Murderers, Rapists, and Terrorists have More Rights to Due Process of the Law than Parents Accused of Child Abuse

It is clear that the effort to protect children from abuse has resulted in many non-abused children being taken away from innocent parents by Child Protective Services. Less than 16% of children are taken from their families for allegations of any kind of abuse, and only 17% of allegations against parents are even substantiated. In the name of protecting some children, many more children are traumatized and abused by the very system tasked with protecting them. Medical kidnapping and state-sanctioned seizure of children is more common than most people have realized. Yet parents whose children are taken find that they have less rights than criminals. The right to due process is conspicuously absent from almost all CPS cases. How is it possible that criminals who are charged with crimes such as murder, rape, and terrorism have more rights to due process of the law than parents who been accused, often anonymously, of child abuse? Imagine if there was proposed legislation regarding terrorism with the following provisions: Special anti-terrorism police could search any home without a warrant - and stripsearch any occupant - based solely on an anonymous telephone tip. Any occupant of the home could be detained for 24 hours to two weeks without so much as a hearing – and they’ll probably be detained far longer because, in the special anti-terrorism court set up by this legislation, all the judges are afraid to look soft on “terrorists.” At that first hearing the detainees may – or may not – get a lawyer just before the hearing begins, and they almost never get effective counsel. At almost every stage, the standard of proof is not “beyond a reasonable doubt” or even “clear and convincing” but merely “preponderance of the evidence,” the lowest standard in American jurisprudence, the same one used to determine which insurance company pays for a fender-bender. And in most states, all the hearings and all the records are secret. The reality is that this isn't fictional at all - except that it doesn't apply to alleged terrorists; it applies to families. These injustices are the experience of hundreds of thousands of parents all across the United States of America.

Law School Director: Stop Terminating Parental Rights – Preserve Family Relationships

Attorney Vivek Sankaran, director of the Child Advocacy Law Clinic and the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic at the University Michigan Law School, has written an excellent piece that was published in The Chronicle for Social Change titled: Termination of Parental Rights: What’s The Rush? Vivek writes that family courts today are too quick to remove parental rights when one parent is deemed "unfit." An attorney himself who has represented children in foster care, Vivek gives an example of a father who was incarcerated for drug usage, and yet stayed involved in his daughter's life for the 8 years he spent in prison, and even helped fund her time in law school, where she was able to finish her degree and graduate. He was able to stay involved in his daughter's life because his parental rights were not severed, which is what happens in most states, sadly, when a parent is deemed "unfit" to parent. Vivek writes that in one state, Utah, the Court of Appeals has questioned the necessity of terminating parental rights so quickly, and that this ruling could serve as a model for other states.

Incentivizing Pediatricians to Be Vaccine Bullies

It is quite common for pediatricians (and family doctors) to encounter parents who refuse one or more infant vaccines, most often due to safety concerns. These concerns also mean that pediatricians frequently get requests to modify or delay the vaccine schedule—nearly three-fifths (58%) of pediatricians reported such requests in a 2014 AAP survey. Rather than recognize the validity of parents’ safety concerns or admit to their own ambivalence about some of the newer vaccines, many pediatricians—nearly two in five according to some estimates—choose to boot uncooperative families out of their practice. A recent Medscape survey indicates that one of the main things that pediatricians dislike about their job is “dealing with difficult patients.” However, when pediatricians dismiss families whose only crime is the desire to make informed and individualized health care decisions on behalf of their children, the doctors are doing more than just unprofessionally dumping “difficult” patients—they also are protecting their bottom line. Dr. Bob Sears confirms that HMO plans use incentive practices, conducting year-end chart reviews and awarding large bonuses to pediatric practices that score well. Dr. Sears explains: “This bonus varies depending on the number of patients the doctor sees. One of the requirements for a patient’s chart to pass the test is that they are fully vaccinated. […] Such incentives…end up forcing a doctor to consider the financial implications of accepting patients who even just want to opt out of one vaccine. …Maybe a few such families wouldn’t make them fail the chart reviews, but if they have too many, there goes their year-end bonus.”

9th Circuit Court Upholds Parents’ Constitutional Rights: Rules Against Arizona Social Workers Removing Children without a Warrant

In what is seen as a victory for parental rights, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of Arizona parents who had their 3 children removed from their home simply because they had taken photos of them after a bath when they were laying on a towel naked. They went to develop the photos at a Walmart, and an employee reported them to the police who were called in to investigate. The police investigation was extensive, including medical and forensic exams of the children looking for sexual abuse, as well as obtaining a warrant to search the family's home, where police "seized all the evidence that might be relevant to a child pornography investigation: computers, printers, photographs, cell phones, undeveloped film, floppy discs, DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, and cameras." Police found no evidence of wrongdoing, so no charges were filed against the parents, and the children were returned home. However, Arizona social workers with a participating police detective decided to remove the young children from the home anyway, even without a court issued warrant. The children ended up in foster homes, but then later placed with their grandparents, and eventually returned home. The family sued the police detective and settled out of court, but Arizona courts ruled against the family suing the social workers citing state "Qualified Immunity" laws for social workers. The 9th Circuit disagreed, ruling that social workers are not above the law, and cannot violate the 4th and 14th Amendments, and that the courts have consistently ruled that families have a “well-elaborated constitutional right to live together without governmental interference.”