On a party-line vote, California Democrats advanced on Tuesday legislation that would allow therapists to remove low-income children as young as 12 from their homes and check them into state-run youth shelters with or without parental consent.
Approved by California’s Senate Judiciary Committee, Assembly Bill 665 states, “The professional person who is treating or counseling the minor shall state in the client record whether and when the person attempted to contact the minor’s parent or guardian, and whether the attempt to contact was successful or unsuccessful, or the reason why, in the professional person’s opinion, it would be inappropriate to contact the minor’s parent line or guardian.”
“The bill’s advance is the latest victory in a campaign by California Democrats to roll back parental rights, often in the name of allowing minors to choose their own gender,” according to The Washington Free Beacon. “Other legislation making its way through the legislature would punish parents and foster parents who do not ‘affirm’ children’s transgender identity.”
Teachers sue California school over policy forcing them to hide kids’ gender transitions from parents https://t.co/n3BWBCJYYK pic.twitter.com/iyKVEE4VdG
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) May 1, 2023
Dozens of concerned Californians turned up ahead of the vote to condemn the legislation, calling it “heinous,” “dangerous,” and tantamount to the “emancipation of 12-year-olds.”
According to the authors of the bill, Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (D) and state Senator Scott Wiener (D), their fears amount to nothing but “lies” and “misinformation.”
Under current California law, privately insured minors from the age of 12 can receive outpatient therapy without their parent’s consent. AB-665 simply seeks to extend access to mental health services to all children, Carrillo and Wiener argued, noting that the bill applies only to children on Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program that provides eligible low-income residents of the Golden State with health coverage.
Any criticism of the bill is the result of “right-wing outrage,” Wiener said.
“This bill protects children. It makes children safer. It makes children healthier,” he stated. “It’s unfortunate that this bill, like so many, has been caught up in this right-wing outrage machine.”
Carrillo vowed that they would “never” strip parents of their rights.
“We would never move a piece of policy that takes away parental discretion, to allow children to not have access to their parents,” she told parents. “There’s been a lot of misinformation and lies about this bill to the point that it has national and international attention as to how we treat mental health services for young people in the United States and California.”
But, as is so often the case with Democrats, Carrillo wasn’t being entirely candid.
Reports The Beacon:
[T]he bill would leap beyond the autonomy granted to children under existing law. There would be no obligation, as there is for minors on private insurance, for therapists or counselors to show that a 12-year-old patient is mature enough or in a dangerous situation before transferal to a “residential shelter.” Whether or not to inform the parents of the move would also be left to the discretion of the mental health professional, who could be an intern or trainee.
“The authors want to change the law to let a 12-year-old opt out of their home on a whim, invoking parental separation and emancipation of minors without any claim of danger or parental consent,” attorney Nicole Pearson argued ahead of the vote. “This is child emancipation.”
If the goal was to allow minors on Medi-Cal to receive mental health assistance without parental consent, she said, the lawmakers could have simply revised the state’s welfare code, leaving the rules for entering residential shelters intact.
Attorney Taylor Chambers of the National Center for Youth Law co-sponsored the bill.
Pearson’s suggestion wouldn’t work, Chambers argued, because a change to the welfare code would cause billing confusion among doctors and counselors, and that would mean it wasn’t “equitable.”
While gender identity isn’t specifically mentioned in the bill, many suspect Wiener crafted the bill with so-called gender-affirming care in mind, according to The Beacon.
“Wiener, who recently honored anti-Catholic drag nuns at the California legislature, is also pushing a bill that would require California foster parents to ‘affirm’ the transgender identities of foster children,” the outlet reports. “Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced another bill that Wiener co-authored to make parents’ non-affirmation of their child’s transgender identity grounds for revoking or limiting custody.”
California becomes sanctuary state for those ‘charged with mutilating children,’ US Constitution be damned https://t.co/YrQ6jIuOkJ pic.twitter.com/XmXnhuDxdh
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) January 1, 2023
And, last year, “a law that Wiener authored went into effect, empowering California courts to take temporary jurisdiction of kids who come to California from out of state in search of hormone therapy or other transition treatment.”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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