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Parents Rights to Make Choices Regarding Their Children's Healthcare Under Attack in California



Editorial Staff - January 24, 2022


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Why is it that we always find the craziest stories coming out of California? There is currently a proposed bill in the "Golden State" would allow children age 12 and up to be vaccinated without their parents’ consent under a proposal introduced Friday by a state senator who said youngsters “deserve the right to protect themselves” against infectious disease. Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener is dillussional if he truly believes that parents throughout California are not going to go ballistic over this issue.


Under current law in California, minors ages 12 to 17 cannot be vaccinated without permission from their parents or guardians, unless the vaccine is specifically to prevent a sexually transmitted disease.


Parental consent laws for vaccinations vary by state and region, and a few places such as Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., allow kids 11 and up, and in San Francisco 12 and older, to consent to their own COVID-19 vaccines.


This insanity is sponsored by Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener and would lift the parental requirement for that age group for any vaccine that has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If the bill passes, California would allow the youngest age of any state to be vaccinated without parental permission. The problem I personally see with this is that the COVID vaccine is not fully approved but conditionally approved for "emergency use".


This bill of course is far more reaching than just the COVID-19 coronavirsu. and even though it includes immunizations against the coronavirus, but Wiener said vaccine hesitancy and misinformation has also deterred vaccinations against measles and other contagious diseases that can then spread among youths whose parents won’t agree to have them vaccinated.


“You have parents who are blocking their kids from getting the vaccines or ... they may not be anti-vaccine but they just aren’t prioritizing it,” Wiener told reporters at a news conference at San Francisco’s Everett Middle School. “Those kids deserve the right to protect themselves.”

Responding to criticism that the bill would limit parents’ oversight of their children’s health, Wiener said that California state law already allows people 12 and older to consent to the Hepatitis B and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines and to treatments for sexually transmitted infections, substance abuse and mental health disorders.


“This is not a new or radical idea, it’s very consistent with existing law,” he said.

Alabama allows such decisions for children starting at age 14, Oregon at 15 and Rhode Island and South Carolina at 16, Wiener said. So gee why not bring the insanity to the Golden State?


Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom in October announced the nation’s first coronavirus vaccine mandate for schoolchildren.


If passed the bill would most likely not take effect until later this year and allows exemptions for medical reasons, religious and personal beliefs — though lawmakers may try to limit non-medical reasons.


Sen. Wiener’s legislation is not a mandate, but any vaccination legislation has been hugely controversial in California and elsewhere as it should be.


Even before the pandemic, busloads of opponents filled the state Capital and lined up for hours to protest bills lifting religious and personal beliefs for the 10 vaccines already required of school children.


And in September, more than a thousand people rallied outside the Capital to oppose vaccine mandates, even though California lawmakers had postponed their consideration of legislation requiring that workers either be vaccinated or get weekly coronavirus testing to keep their jobs. Once again an issue of "my body, my choice!"


“This to me seems to be another example of Democrats wanting to remove parents from the equation,” said Republican Assemblyman James Gallagher. “I think that’s flawed policy. I think parents are vital to these decisions.” And we here at WeWon2020.com could not agree more strongly.


However, Gallagher thinks Wiener may have difficulty getting his bill passed even in a Legislature overwhelmingly controlled by Democrats stating “I think there will be bipartisan support for the proposition that parents should be involved in their kids’ health care decisions, in deciding what types of medical care and drugs they should be taking,”


Wiener held out the examples of children who may want to get vaccinated because they currently are barred from participating in sports, band or other activities because their parents either won’t or can’t get them vaccinated.


With children age 5 and up are currently eligible for coronavirus vaccines, but 28.6% of California residents ages 12-17 remain unvaccinated — more than 900,000 of an eligible population of more than 3 million, or more than one in four, Wiener said.


Weiner continued on, "people ages 12 and older can also consent to abortions in California" though in that case lawmakers in 1987 passed a law that would have required minors to get their parents’ consent absent a medical emergency or a judge’s permission.

That law was overturned by the state Supreme Court.


 
 
 

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