New York State About to Eliminate Parental Consent for Medical Decisions

Chinatopix via AP

Do you think parents should have a say in the medical procedures performed on their children?

Most people do, at least in Middle America. It is only in the rarified air the Elite breathe--you know, the people who love the smell of their own gaseous emissions--that letting parents have a say in their child's medical care is controversial. 

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New York is one of those places, which is why NYC smells like a sewer at the height of summer. 

At issue is New York Assembly Bill A6761, which sells itself as a measure to help out homeless kids by allowing them to access necessary healthcare with less red tape and easier access to funding from the state. 

That explanation is, to put it nicely, total crap. Instead, the bill is clearly intended to disempower parents by putting kids, who often don't have a clue about the risks, benefits, and long-term implications of their choices, into the driver's seat on medical procedures ranging from vaccinations to surgery. 

It is a profoundly bad idea, and no doubt, will be put to use getting kids to agree to every jab under the sun, hormone treatments, and various surgeries of varieties you can guess. 

Here's the bill description, which sounds nice enough:

Allows homeless youth to give effective consent to certain medical, dental, health, and hospital services; provides for insurance coverage of such health care services consented to by such youth.

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Some poor homeless kid comes into the dentist with an abscessed tooth. You wouldn't want to put him through the red tape of child services to get a root canal, would you? Having had that problem, I can tell you that the quicker the better in that situation. 

Now let's look at what is IN the bill:

HOWEVER, A CHILD WHO MAY GIVE EFFECTIVE CONSENT  TO
 MEDICAL,  DENTAL, HEALTH, AND HOSPITAL SERVICES PURSUANT TO THIS SECTION
 MAY GIVE SUCH CONSENT TO THEIR OWN IMMUNIZATION, AND THE CONSENT  OF  NO
 OTHER PERSON SHALL BE NECESSARY.
   6.  Anyone  who  acts  in  good faith based on the representation by a
 person that [he is] THEY ARE eligible to consent pursuant to  the  terms
 of this section shall be deemed to have received effective consent.
   8.  ANY  PERSON,  INCLUDING A MINOR, WHO COMPREHENDS THE NEED FOR, THE
 NATURE OF, AND THE REASONABLY FORESEEABLE RISKS AND BENEFITS INVOLVED IN
 ANY CONTEMPLATED MEDICAL, DENTAL, HEALTH, AND/OR HOSPITAL SERVICES,  AND
 ANY  ALTERNATIVES  THERETO,  MAY GIVE EFFECTIVE CONSENT TO SUCH SERVICES
 FOR THEMSELF, AND THE CONSENT OF NO OTHER PERSON SHALL BE NECESSARY. THE
 COMMISSIONER IS AUTHORIZED TO PROMULGATE RULES AND REGULATIONS NECESSARY
 TO EFFECTUATE THE PROVISIONS OF THIS SUBDIVISION.
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"The consent of no other person is necessary." Notice how there is no age limit of any kind. 

Puberty blockers? Top surgery? Bottom surgery? 

We already know that these people think 7- and 8-year-olds are capable of consenting to the most extreme procedures, because they have told us so many times. So the whole notion that the child needs to be able to make informed consent is absurd on its face. 

This is directed at putting a barrier between the parent and the child. Any child can be groomed into believing they need some medical procedure, and no matter how much a parent objects, the child gets his way. 

This is a step beyond the whole "sanctuary state" concept, in which some caretaker has to be involved in transing their child. If this bill passes in New York, a child of any age might decide to make a horrible medical decision and the state will pay for it, whatever the parents think. 

Lest you think this is a drafting mistake, you should realize that activists have been pushing in this direction for years. With great success. The UK has been moving in this direction for a while now.

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The Left is committed to separating children from their parents, if not physically, then emotionally and legally. Parents are expected to physically provide for them, but the state and its agents will be the moral educators and systematically remove parental influence as much as possible. 

 This is a bedrock principle in the Left's ideology and a key part of their ongoing strategy to move society ever leftward. 

Keep an eye on efforts like this. It will be coming to your state soon enough. 

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