How much should parents know about their kids’ health? NC bill gets it wrong | Opinion

A bill from North Carolina Republican lawmakers seeks to limit confidentiality between minors and their health care providers under the guise of “parental rights.”

Currently, minors can receive treatment for mental health, substance use disorder, pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections in North Carolina without parental consent. House Bill 519, titled the Parents’ Medical Bill of Rights, would amend that to require parental consent for any medical treatment that isn’t related to pregnancy. The bill passed in the House last month and now lies with the Senate.

Lawmakers support the bill as an extension of “family values,” but few children will benefit because of it. While the bill may seem in the best interest of the child, it would place decisions about serious medical issues entirely in the hands of parents. It would deprive children of the ability to make choices about their body — and potentially discourage them from asking for help when dealing with complex and sensitive issues.

It’s an extension of the culture war being waged in North Carolina and across the country for years — a movement that uses “parental rights” as an excuse for government overreach. The Parents’ Medical Bill of Rights has similar goals to another bill, the Parents’ Bill of Rights, which passed in 2023. That bill introduced greater knowledge over child behavior, an awareness of pronoun changes and mandatory parental consent for some health screenings, which put teachers in a difficult position of sharing information a student told them in confidence.

Similarly, the Parents’ Bill of Medical Rights assigns North Carolina doctors potentially negative roles as mediators between the parent and the child. In having the parents rule the treatments, the bill places the parent’s medical judgment over the doctor’s, and perhaps even over the child’s wishes.

Fear of judgment and punishment has a cost. When treatment for the most sensitive issues requires a parent’s OK, a child with a mental health struggle or an STD may be afraid to speak up. Some experts believe this change may disrupt treatments for some of the most complex and sensitive issues, which could place children’s lives in more danger. In some cases, the doctor could be the only trusted adult in a child’s life.

Jenna Beckham, an OB-GYN based in Raleigh, said parents sometimes respond with threats and abandonment over children’s behaviors. Beckham says the situation might get worse if the bill passes.

“These kids are not following what is going on in the house,” Beckham said. “They are not going to change what a teenager does.”

Beckham said the bill would mostly change the access to STI care for adolescents. She felt that authoritarian parenting was a pattern that was now reaching public health.

“There certainly is a cultural shift over parents wanting to take advantage of all aspects of their children’s lives. They want to have total power,” Beckham said.

Mecklenburg County Health Director Raynard Washington said that it’s the children with non-supportive home lives who would be the most affected. Washington used the original Parents’ Bill of Rights as an example. The bill required parental consent before screening kids at schools, and the number of oral exams dropped while some parents weren’t able to look at forms.

“I’m not an expert on parent-child relationships, but if a child is not ready to disclose it to their parents, there is a good chance it won’t get treated,” Washington said.

The sad part about a culture war is that it is often an attempt to claw back the mind and body of a child. Parents deserve to know about their children, but the children deserve to be themselves. Is it really an expression of love when you act out of fear to make something more like yourself? For some, it is.