The unintended consequences of Johnnie Byrd's redundant "parental rights" amendment could put children in danger.
Published February 23, 2004
Is Florida suffering from an outbreak of kids taking their parents to court to keep them from searching their book bags? Of course not. The concept is laughable - that is, everywhere except in Tallahassee.
Using the justification that the legal rights of parents to control their children have been eroded, House Speaker and U.S. Senate candidate Johnnie Byrd is pushing a "parental rights" amendment to the state Constitution. Supporters of the proposal are putting forth absurd and unfounded claims that parents these days can be prevented from searching their children's bedrooms. Their arguments are as disingenuous as they are dishonest.
A constitutional amendment confering broad authority to parents to "raise, educate and care for their children" is at best redundant - since parents already enjoy those rights - and at worst, decidedly harmful.
No one knows how such language might be interpreted by the courts. Might the amendment impair the ability of the state to require childhood inoculations? Might it prevent the state from requiring parents to seek professional medical care for children who are seriously ill, even when they object on religious grounds? Does this mean that children who are home-schooled by their parents will no longer have to meet certain basic educational standards? It is hard to know. Byrd, in typical fashion, didn't think it necessary to give the unprecedented measure a full airing. He introduced it with great fanfare on Monday and the amendment was voted out of the only House committee to which it was assigned on Tuesday.
At least Senate President Jim King is putting on the brakes by raising legitimate questions about the amendment's breadth and potential "unintended consequences." As King said through a spokeswoman, "He was under the impression that the issue at hand was parental notification of minors seeking abortions."
King is right, abortion is the subtext. Byrd's driving ambition in proposing an amendment is to override the decision last year by the Florida Supreme Court that struck down a 1999 law requiring minors to notify their parents before obtaining an abortion. But if Byrd wants the Constitution to support parental notification, then he should write an amendment that says so. There are plenty of good reasons to oppose such an amendment, not the least of which is that most minors already voluntarily involve a parent in their decision, and those who choose not to may come from dysfunctional or abusive homes. If this is the issue Byrd seeks to address, he should do so directly.
Florida's high court has consistently upheld the principle that parents have the right to direct the upbringing of their children, balking only when the Legislature directed a parent-child communication on abortion. Byrd and his supporters who object to the high court's action on parental notification don't have to spread misinformation that parents can no longer look in their children's dresser drawers in order to undo it. A "parental rights" amendment is more than unnecessary, it is an unknown that could have negative consequences for the health and well being of the state's children.
