Washington State Bill Is the Final Step Removing Parents From Their Children's Critical Healthcare Decisions

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

Activist and author Cyrus Krohn appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to discuss H.B. 2288, which is currently in committee in Washington State. It deals with the establishment of school-based health centers. This bill will provide easy access to confidential physical and mental health services that children aged 13 and older can access without their parents’ consent.

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The age of consent for obtaining health care services was lowered to 13 in a bill that went into effect in January of 2020. According to the fact sheet from the Washington State Health Care Authority:

According to Washington law, a minor who is 13 years old or older may initiate an evaluation and treatment for outpatient and/or inpatient mental health services, substance use disorder (SUD) treatment, or withdrawal management without parental consent. The minor has the right to receive services in the least restrictive setting. A youth is admitted for inpatient treatment only if the professional in charge of the facility concurs with the need for treatment and the youth meets criteria for this level of care.

When you review the fact sheet, it appears the only time a health care professional is required to inform a parent is if a child refuses inpatient treatment when it is required. In practice, the mental health interventions referenced in the document cover a wide range of services. According to World Watch:

Since January, children in Washington state ages 13 and up can obtain confidential treatment for mental health conditions and gender dysphoria using their parent’s insurance plan—without their parents’ consent.

Now, the state is considering a bill to set up health clinics on middle and high school campuses. Parents fear these clinics will talk children into dangerous and irreversible medical treatments such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to make their bodies look more like the opposite sex.“

This bill would allow a child to make an appointment during the school day, and Mom and Dad would never know about it,” said Jennifer Heine-Withee, a mother of three who runs Washington Parents Rights in Education.

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Obviously, for younger teens who need to access these services in the community, rather than during the school day, there is a higher likelihood they would need their parents’ support. If H.B. 2288 passes, these services will be readily available during the school day. There are some benefits to this type of access. Provision for required immunizations, annual and sports physicals, and illness during the school day are all examples.

However, easy access to birth control, abortion, puberty-blockers, and hormones for children as young as 13 is unconscionable. Likewise, mental health treatment for other issues may involve medications. Many of the medications provided for depression and anxiety have the potential for dangerous side effects.

As an example, a specific class of antidepressants, called SSRIs, can lead to an increase in suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in children and adolescents. Placing a child on a drug like this without parental consent or notification is not just irresponsible, it is dangerous.

Add this to the fact that Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee signed a comprehensive sex-education curriculum into law in March 2020. According to LifeSite News, a program called 3R meets the program criteria set out in this legislation. The curriculum shows that the program begins teaching the concept of gender in kindergarten and introducing reproduction in 1st grade.

LifeSite adds additional details:

[Katy] Faust reviewed the educational materials that comply with the bill and identified numerous alarming passages, including references to “devout Catholics” and “pretty conservative” households supposedly leaving their kids ignorant about sex, highlighting “bathing together” and “mutual masturbation” as activities with “no risk” for sexually-transmitted diseases, and references to 12-year-olds using condoms.

Other messages contained in state-approved material, she says, include instructions on bondage and “body fluid play,” how males can allegedly have babies and why they should be allowed on girls’ sports teams, and how to obtain abortions, cross-sex hormones, and HPV vaccinations without parental involvement.

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In Washington, children will be taught about complex sexual concepts, in some cases using graphic materials, from the time they enter kindergarten. Katy Faust, a children’s rights activist, highlighted this by describing the legislative debate sessions:

“Some of the approved curriculum is so graphic legislators couldn’t quote it in proceedings without getting ‘gaveled’ or silenced,” Faust said. “Capital television had to run a mature content warning when airing debate coverage, the equivalent of a rated R movie.”

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The state has already given children the ability to seek and keep confidential mental health and reproductive health services when they are as young as 13. Now they will be able to access it at school if H.B. 2288 becomes law. This will effectively keep their parents out of significant and consequential medical decisions. According to Krohn, parents will get a bill that does not specify services rendered in that case.

The ACLU also notes that Washington State law essentially requires public schools to engage in gender-affirming behavior. Staff must use a child’s preferred name and pronoun and allows children to dress and present in their preferred clothing. It requires that children be able to use their preferred bathrooms and provides access to play in competitive sports according to their gender identity.

There will be no challenge to a child’s gender dysphoria from the professionals in a public school setting. Professionals will not challenge kids despite evidence there may be an element of social contagion among teen girls — a social contagion so dangerous that the U.K. High Court has essentially banned children under 16 from consenting to puberty-blockers. Yet Carlson and Krohn seem to agree the trans issue is what all these legislative moves in Washington are about.

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Douglas Murray wrote in The Madness of Crowds:

Every age before this one has performed or permitted acts that to us are morally stupefying. So, unless we have any reason to think we are more reasonable, morally better or wiser than any time in the past, it is reasonable to assume there will be some things we are presently doing – possibly while flushed with moral virtue – that our descendants will whistle through their teeth at and say “What the hell were they thinking?”

It is safe to bet that the sexualization of children and the state’s role in providing the means for them to irreversibly alter their young bodies will be among those things our descendants will be horrified by. However, if you ask the legislators in Washington pushing these bills, they would tell you they are on the right side of history.

Kiera Bell, a woman who is detransitioning in the U.K. and who brought the case to the high court, would disagree. At 16, her life was irrevocably changed in just three clinic visits. One has to wonder how many young adults like Kiera there will be in Washington by 2030.

WATCH the full segment with Cyrus Krohn:

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Transgender Surgery Does Not Improve Mental Health, Academics Belatedly Admit
Alito: Court’s ‘Preposterous’ Trans Ruling Threatens Religion, Speech, Privacy, and Safety

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