PARENTS UNDER GROWING ASSAULT 

By BOB WARD

Editor of the Texas Journal



   Many Americans sense that parents and the family are losing 

the right to raise their children.  We hear about a school 

incident in one place, a court decision in another, a health 

policy somewhere else. It all contributes to a feeling that 

parents are no longer in control but instead serve at the 

pleasure of the government.

   Perhaps the clearest evidence that parents are alarmed is the 

initiative in Colorado which will, if passed, make parental rights 

explicit in the state's constitution.  It is opposed by health 

professionals and educators. 

   Patrick Fagan at the Heritage Foundation has compiled and 

analyzed such incidents in the context of case law and cultural 

traditions, and finds that parents' instincts are correct -- their 

rights are being violated. 

    Fagan points out that in a series of cases from 1923 to 1979 

the Supreme Court has recognized that parents' rights are 

fundamental and cannot be abrogated except for a "compelling 

state interest." 

   Despite these precedents, Fagan reports, legislatures, 

bureaucratic agencies and courts have substituted the vague 

and subjective standard of "the child's best interests" which re-

quires no finding of neglect or unfitness on the part of the 

parents -- merely the preference of a bureaucrat.

   In some instances, he said, legislatures and courts have 

shifted the burden to the parents to show why they should be 

allowed to retain authority over their children.  In 

Massachusetts, for example, the effect of a series of rulings is 

that "the state is assumed to possess superior authority to 

direct the education and health of the child unless the parents 

can demonstrate otherwise."

   The Washington State Supreme Court approved removing an 

8th grade girl from her home because she objected when her 

parents' wouldn't let her smoke pot, drink alcohol and have sex 

with her boyfriend. 

  Fagan cites abuses from jurisdictions all over the U.S., 

including Texas.  In most cases the violations are led by the 

so-called helping professions: mental health counselors, social 

workers, health officials, and educators.  In some places library 

personnel are forbidden to tell a parent which books his child is 

borrowing. 

    Fagan believes parents' rights must be codified because 

governments increasingly see child rearing as a public matter 

to be controlled by the Village, and this is incompatible with the 

natural rights of a free  people.