WATCH: Your Child ‘Belongs to the State’: Lawmakers Claim the State Owns Your Children
By Annabelle Bamforth
TheFreeThoughtProject.com
May 21, 2017
Legislators in Texas have been working toward passing a host of laws to reform the state’s Child Protective Services agency. New legislation has been crafted to improve the agency which has seen multiple dilemmas resulting in detrimental safety problems for children in the state. There have been several bills introduced this year aimed at improving the agency. One bill, in particular, House Bill 39, seeks in part to require medical exams to be performed more quickly on children who have been newly placed into the foster care system.
HB 39, introduced by Rep. Gene Wu (D-Houston), would mandate that the state’s Department of Family Protective Services schedule a medical examination for children who have been in temporary state custody for longer than three business days. Children in rural locations would be required to receive a medical exam within seven business days.
While the bill was originally centered around hastening medical exams for new foster children, questions arose regarding whether vaccines would be included as part of these medical exams. Rep. Bill Zedler (R-Arlington), the vice chairman of the Texas Freedom Caucus, introduced an amendment to HB 39 to make vaccinations exempt from the required medical treatments. The bill saw a turbulent debate upon Zedler’s amendment as the discussion turned to childhood vaccines and who should be responsible for crucial medical decisions when custody is obscured.
“You get that child back five, eight, 10 days later, and they’ve now had that surgery or they’ve had these vaccinations,” Zedler said according to Dallas Morning News. “That’s an issue of liberty.”
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