California Democrats advanced legislation to let mental health professionals remove children from their homes and place them in state custody without parental consent. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Assembly Bill 665 on a party-line vote. The bill would allow poor children as young as 12 to check into state-run youth shelters on the unconditional say-so of a therapist or counselor.
Washington Free BeaconAhead of the vote, dozens of Californians passionately testified against the bill, variously condemning it as “emancipation of 12 year olds,” “heinous,” and “dangerous.” But the bill’s authors dismissed the concerns as “misinformation” and “lies.”
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. Other legislation making its way through the legislature would punish parents and foster parents who do not “affirm” children’s transgender identity.
Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (D.) and state senator Scott Wiener (D.), the co-authors of the bill, reiterated on Tuesday that they simply seek to give all children equal access to mental health services, as privately insured minors from age 12 can already receive outpatient therapy without parental consent. The bill would only apply to kids on Medi-Cal, the state Medicaid program that provides health coverage to eligible low-income residents.
“This bill protects children. It makes children safer. It makes children healthier,” said Wiener. “It’s unfortunate that this bill, like so many, has been caught up in this right-wing outrage machine.”
The 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.
Other critics have warned that if the bill becomes law, troubled children will exploit its provisions to run away from home. Transgender kids, in particular, could try to negate their parents’ veto over sex-change treatments, including by accusing them of abuse.
“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,” Nicole Pearson, an attorney, said in her testimony against the bill. “This is child emancipation.”
Pearson noted that if lawmakers only wanted to remove the parental consent requirement for minors on Medi-Cal to receive mental health services, they could simply tweak the state’s welfare code. That would leave the rules for entering residential shelters unchanged.
When Republican state senator Scott Wilk asked about Pearson’s alternative during the hearing, Taylor Chambers, an attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, a cosponsor of the bill, responded that changing the welfare code would create billing confusion for doctors and counselors—and therefore wouldn’t be equitable.
Az gal says
It’s always been like this. The state actively works to remove children from homes for any reason, the counselors do the dirty work. The clinics are locked up tighter than a prison. I had to go to one of these counselors once for my child, she made everything worse, not better, ON PURPOSE. I gave her a piece of my mind, and her supervisor. Discontinued all services.
Dan says
I’ve just been reading an article about Australian hospitals performing double mastectomys on kids as young as 13 after one psychiatric appointment. Within the article was written that someone had to have four to have their tonsils removed.
Go figure.
BareNakedIslam says
Ten years from now, all these people will be on trial for destroying children’s lives.
Dan says
Let’s hope so. But the damage to these individuals is irreversible. What a shame for these confused teens. Doesn’t matter how long the Perpetrators get. They’ll consigned to a life of regret and constant pill taking.
BareNakedIslam says
The lawsuits will be enormous.
The Tasmanian Devil says
While this is among the sickest, most degenerate things I’ve yet seen to emerge from the live insane asylum we know as “California,” remember this: Guess who ELECTED these dangerous criminally insane psychos?
I no longer empathize or have sympathy or pity on or for anyone being similarly destroyed in that sick. sick state because this is just the latest in a long string of similarly warped laws, rules, and other idiocies.
Folks, GET UP & GET OUT or just shut up! — because YOU are part of the problem!
That said, I can’t tell you what would happen if I were a parent and had my child snatched by government bureaucRAT lackeys like these monstrous bastards because the criminal, corrupt FBI would be down on me in less time than it takes for the California legislature to pass another degenerate LGBT law.
You’ll have tp use your imagination.
Kathleen Woods says
Demacrap party needs to explode Period.