Various states have moved to allow children to secure birth control without the knowledge or notification of parents, including schools that reportedly will implant IUDs in children as young as sixth graders. Oregon however is going further still and reportedly allowed 15-year-olds to get a sex-change operation at state expense under its Medicaid program. What is curious is that Oregon officials are thus far refusing to discuss the program with media despite its obvious importance to the citizens of the state. If these reports are inaccurate, we should hear it directly from these officials. If this story is true, we are witnessing a significant change in our notion of parental rights without even a passing conversation over the basis and scope of such changes.
I have long been a critic of moves to exclude parents from notification of such procedures as abortions as a violation of parental rights. The idea that a child might be able to get such a sex-change operation without notification, let alone approval, of parents is astonishing. The notion that your son could return your daughter without notice is like a scene out of some sitcom.
Yet, Oregon Health Authority spokeswoman Susan Wickstrom said that the age of medical consent is set by state law and that age is 15 in Oregon. That allows the teenager to secure a sex-change operation and seek state coverage from the Health Evidence Review Commission (HERC). Since gender dysphoria is classified by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder in which a person identifies as the sex opposite of his or her birth, the basis for refuse such an operation may be limited.
We have been discussing how medical and psychiatric experts are now approving the raising of boys and girls as young as five as the opposite gender. This obviously is a much more permanent course of change.
Nevertheless, Jenn Burleton, founder of the Portland non-profit group TransActive, insists that requiring parental consent would lead to more stress and even suicide: “Parents may not be supportive. They may not be in an environment where they feel the parent will affirm their identity, this may have been going on for years.” That is certainly true. However, they also may be supportive. They are a family and the parents raised this child.
It is important to note that a long list of criteria must still be met for such approval to occur. However, it is the lack of parental involvement that concerns me the most.
HERC estimates that as many as 112 Oregon kids may be gender dysphoric. The cost of cross-sex hormone therapy, puberty-suppressing drugs and sex reassignment surgeries are expected to be as high as $150,000 per year. However, HERC argues that the costs must be balanced against the education in suicides. It predicts that procedures will avoid one suicide a year with an average cost per suicide attempt in the U.S. is $7,234. Putting aside the merits of the program as a whole, that type of cost-benefit arguments seems highly questionable and illusory in my view. That does not mean that this program cannot be defended on medical or psychiatric grounds, but I do not believe that these are costs that are easily compared or measured.
In the end, we need to have a long-delayed discussion about parental rights in this nation for the array of different procedures and services for children without the notice or consent of parents.
What do you think?
“It Takes a Village” to take your child away from you.
We often focus on the northeast and California as the left wing wacko centers of this country. Meanwhile, the left wingers in the northwest are apparently inbreeding and becoming the new Tennessee.
randyjet:
Where did you find out that emancipation was a requirement for this? It is not a requirement for an abortion or birth control without notifying the parents. I would like to know . . .
Don’t get wrapped around the axle on gender dysphoria; this story is about removing parental consent from the equation.
Another way to make money when Halloween is over. Trick or treat, am I male or female?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/nyregion/transgender-minors-gender-reassignment-surgery.html?_r=0
“No law prohibits minors from receiving sex-change hormones or even surgery, but insurers, both private and public, have generally refused to extend coverage for these procedures to those under 18. In March, New York’s Medicaid drew a line at that age, and at 21 for some procedures.
But the drive to treat children is relatively new. One of the first and biggest hormone programs for young teenagers in the United States is led by a Harvard-affiliated pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Norman Spack, at Boston Children’s Hospital.
The puberty-blocking protocol gained legitimacy in 2009, when it was endorsed by the Endocrine Society, the leading association of hormone experts, on the recommendation of a task force including Dr. Spack.
The theory is that this drug-induced lull from about 12 to 16, sometimes younger, will help teenagers decide if they truly are transgender, without committing to irreversible physical changes. Puberty blockers are reversible. But in practice, some experts warn, once children have “socially transitioned” it is very difficult to go back.
If a psychological evaluation confirms gender dysphoria, teenagers are treated with cross-sex hormones (estrogen for boys, testosterone for girls), so they will, in effect, go through opposite-sex puberty. A consequence of going through the whole protocol is infertility.
Advocates say that extending treatment to teenagers will alleviate depression and suicide. With that in mind, Oregon’s Medicaid began covering the gamut of treatment, regardless of age, in January. Patients as young as 15 do not need parental consent.”
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As a parent of four children and grandparent of four, I honestly can’t say what I’d do if one of my children or grandchildren were transgendered. The article above goes into the pro and cons and a story of a a young woman and her family. Gender dysphoria is real and seriously affects the mental health of the sufferer for many years if not for the rest of their lives.
davidm2575: ” While I agree with the idea that children should be educated, Public Education has turned into an indoctrination system. It has become a means of turning children against the values of their parents. For a strong civilization, parental rights need to be considered sacred, even when some children are hurt by that principle.”
Unfortunately, I must agree with you. I think compulsory education is fine; so long as those in charge of conducting said education do not use it as an indoctrination tool.
Just as the Bill of Rights prohibits public schools from indoctrinating students with religious education pursuant to a right wing agenda, so too must those rights protect parents and children from the grasp of “well intended” leftist indoctrination.
Oh, I know you ain’t old enough to drive yet so Donko will drive you down and get it done.”
Meanwhile, the Age of Consent for alcohol is 21, and tobacco is 18. Makes perfect sense.
“Hey, Bro! Here is some coke. Now go get the sex change so you can be a real Bro and I can blow ya.”
This article conveys deeply disturbing information. As Bob Stone points out, all this really started with forced Public Education. While I agree with the idea that children should be educated, Public Education has turned into an indoctrination system. It has become a means of turning children against the values of their parents. For a strong civilization, parental rights need to be considered sacred, even when some children are hurt by that principle.
All part of deconstructing society. Break down barriers. Screw the old outdated rules that burdened and restricted our freedoms. What are parents, anyway? Why, Johnny, your parents can be two homosexual men, legally married to one another! What are parents? Why, Susie, your parents can be two lesbians, legally married to one another! You see, parents can be anyone who declares that they are parents! Don’t forget, any two people, no matter the sex, can legally marry! What, now you are shocked that young children have the right to do as they please in society? You didn’t see this train coming? The old rules no longer apply. It takes a village. Parents are insignificant.
http://koin.com/2015/07/09/headline-irrational-on-oregon-transgender-coverage/
“Jenn Burleton, the executive director of TransActive Gender Center in Portland, said the idea a 15-year-old can walk into a doctor’s office, say they want gender affirmation surgery and get it done without a parent’s consent is unrealistic.
“It’s irrational,” she told KOIN 6 News. “It’s laughable.”
“The age of consent in Oregon has been 15 since 1971,” Burleton said. “It would be a separate but equal implementation of it to say for all other physician- recommended or evidence-based medical care, youth in Oregon can access that at age 15 but for this one they have to wait longer.”
“In Oregon, the age of medical consent is 15 or older. Patients should be able to demonstrate the capacity to make a fully informed decision and to give consent to treatment, regardless of age. However, nothing in Oregon law requires a health care provider to provide medical services to a minor or safeguard the confidentiality of a minor. In most cases, providers will encourage (and in some cases require) family engagement and supports unless it would endanger the patient.”
There are also a long list of guidelines that must be met before anyone gets insurance coverage for cross-sex hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery.
Psychotherapy and medical and surgical treatments for gender dysphoria listed as 413 out of 476 in a list of prioritized health services the Oregon Health Plan will cover.”
“Instead of the concrete individual, you have the names of organizations and, at the highest point, the abstract idea of the State as the principle of political reality. The moral responsibility of the individual is then inevitably replaced by the policy of the State (raison d’etat). Instead of moral and mental differentiation of the individual, you have public welfare and the raising of the living standard. The goal and meaning of individual life (which is the only real life) no longer lie in the individual development but in the policy of the State, which is thrust upon the individual from outside and consists in the execution of an abstract idea which ultimately tends to attract all life to itself. The individual is increasingly deprived of the moral decision as to how he should live his own life, and instead is ruled, fed, clothed, and educated as a social unit, accommodated in the appropriate housing unit, and amused in accordance with the standards that give pleasure and satisfaction to the masses. The rulers, in their turn, are just as much social units as the ruled, and are distinguished only by the fact they are specialized mouthpieces of State doctrine. They do not need to be personalities capable of judgment, but thoroughgoing specialists who are unusable outside their line of business. State policy decides what shall be taught and studied.”
― C.G. Jung, The Undiscovered Self
Who cares what the kids do, you get to carry 8 ounces of pot and grow 4 plants, so just go and fire up. What a state
Conservatives are routinely vilified for their “sky is falling” rhetoric that the State is seizing power at an alarming rate and yet we awake daily to stories that prove the concern to be justified. We are truly witnessing the tragic consequences of electing “intellectuals” that believe only they know what is best for society. There is no such thing as a partially progressive government. It’s all or nothing and those cherry-picking progressives have to own all of this.
This can’t be true. Sounds like someone’s proposal that got blown out of proportion. Still, the thought of this is shivering.
§ 339.010 School attendance required
Except as provided in ORS 339.030 (Exemptions from compulsory school attendance):
(1) All children between the ages of 7 and 18 years who have not completed the 12th grade are required to attend regularly a public full-time school during the entire school term.”
If Oregon State Compulsory Education Law requires children between ages 7 and 18 to attend a public school, does it follow that parents of children in public schools forfeit their right to raise their children as they see fit simply because they lack the time to home school them or the money to send them to private school?
“The Due Process Clause does not permit a State to infringe on the fundamental right of parents to make childrearing decisions simply because a [public school] believes a ‘better’ decision could be made.” – Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000)
It is absurd to think that a child could simply walk into a clinic, get a sex change operation and then walk back out. This concern is so stupid as to be a joke. The child would have to be living apart from the parents, have no contact with them, and to be legal must be considered an emancipated minor since the procedure takes over at least one year. Then the child must also be in school at the same time. So please, let’s deal with REAL problems instead of hypothetical ones.
“So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”
– MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry