Parents Matter: Part 2:

One of the most disconcerting pictures on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Portrait of Jeremiah Belknap, depicts a 7-year-old boy with the features of an adult face.  In 1758, the artist, Joseph Badger, imagined a child as a miniature adult. 

That seems to be the operative image of a child that informs the reproductive rights amendment that will appear on ballots this November. The poorly drafted amendment assumes that children, as miniature adults, can make decisions for themselves, and that parents really don’t matter.  How so?

The proposed amendment uses the broadest possible category, “any individual,” to include even a minor child as a party who might seek life-altering sex surgeries and hormonal therapies as a matter of constitutional right.  That child (and any other individual) would have “the right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions” with or without the assistance of another “person or entity.”  Certainly, a parent can accompany a child to a doctor, as has always been the case.  But this proposed amendment opens the door to have any other “person or entity” perform that function, including teachers and organizations such as Planned Parenthood.  That is, the child may proceed without parental knowledge or consent.  In fact, the child may proceed without any assistance at all, or even in the face of the opposition of his or her parents.

This constitutional amendment would override current Ohio statutes that offer some protection for parental rights.  Parents in Ohio now have the right to exclude their children from sexual abuse education and assault prevention.  If parents would rather teach their children themselves on these sensitive topics, they are free to do so.  They may also seek instruction from other sources they trust, such as churches or medically trained personnel.  See Ohio Revised Code Sec. 3313.60.  Ohio law also requires schools to teach that abstinence is the only effective way to prevent sexually transmitted venereal disease.  If a school administration desires to teach otherwise, it must notify parents and give them the option to exclude their children from such instruction.  See Sec. 3313.6011.  Under the proposed amendment, those requirements may be viewed as impediments to the child’s right to make reproductive healthcare decisions, and stricken down as unconstitutional.

Teachers can plant the seeds in and out of the classroom.  Under the proposed amendment, in their earliest grade school years, some impressionable youngsters may step forward with the encouragement of their teachers, and request a change in gender.  The teacher would have the right to bypass the parents, and take the child for whatever reproductive healthcare decision the child makes.  How is this possible?  Because parents, under this amendment, don’t matter.

The proposed amendment would bring Ohio into that group of states that permits children to announce to a physician that they need a sex-change operation, sterilization, puberty blockers, and so on—and the doctor’s opinion would count for nothing.  All this without the knowledge of the parents. 

The federal government has recently raced ahead of the states on the issue of birth control pills.  The Food and Drug Administration announced that it will make a common birth control pill, known as the Opill, available as an over-the-counter drug by 2024.  Anyone with enough money could then buy the pill. 

Parents know that girls in their early teens (as young as 12) will not always follow directions exactly as they are set out for them.  Although many young girls carefully follow instructions, many who would choose to dabble in sexual relations will display less diligence.  They will follow directions in using the pill about as well as they follow directions in cleaning their rooms, brushing their teeth, and doing their homework.  Aside from the fact that such children will quickly find themselves “in over their heads” in relating to boys, they may well find themselves pregnant at some point.  Such a girl will be sorely tempted to resolve the situation through a “quiet” abortion, which she can obtain using the guidance of a person or entity that is willing to “help” her.  One wonders how long a young girl can keep the distress of an abortion quiet.

It is astonishing that some adults cannot anticipate the consternation, anxiety, overwhelming fear and torment they interject into young lives through allowing such decisions.  They thoroughly ignore the vulnerability of children and their lack of experience.

Joseph Badger may well have imagined children as miniature adults, but his only offense was a rather outlandish painting.  The State’s unrealistic image, on the other hand, will cause much pain, agony and heartache that could have been avoided.  If only its proponents could understand that parents matter.

-(Rev.) Gerald J. Bednar, JD, PhD., Retired