Tag Archives: Topic: Parental Rights

“Cash-strapped and alone on the home front, some military wives are making a living by carrying babies for other couples. What’s behind this emotional choice? And why are they so hotly in demand? A Glamour investigation.”

“For a long, long time — going back to when the English common law first started codifying such things — the law has set the maximum number of parents a child can have as two . . . Now a few family-law scholars have begun to argue that there is nothing special about the number two . . . ”

Samuel Summers, Keeping Vermont’s Public Libraries Safe: When Parents’ Rights May Preempt Their Children’s Rights (October 9, 2010). Vermont Law Review, Vol. 34, p. 651, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1693840

“Under Vermont state law, the Confidentiality of Library Patron Records Act (CLPRA) mandates that parents have no legal right to request their child’s public library internet records unless the child is under the age of sixteen.

This note addresses this important state issue. It argues that the CLPRA should be amended to better enable parents to ensure their child’s welfare. This note begins by exploring both the rights of parents to control the upbringing of their children and the independent rights of their children. The note then offers a legal model for determining when parents’ rights may preempt their child’s independent rights through state action. The note concludes by applying its offered legal model to the present issue. It argues that the Vermont State Legislature should amend the CLPRA age limit for minors from sixteen to eighteen years old, so that parents have legal authority to obtain their child’s public library records exclusively dealing with the internet.”

Christian Post: “‘No one should be allowed to decide that an innocent life – especially one that belongs to someone else – is worthless,’ said Stephen Casey, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund.”

OneNewsNow: “‘This is a case where a 16-year-old high school student was going to be forced to obtain an abortion by her parents, but attorneys allied with the Alliance Defense Fund were able to obtain a court order to protect her from having that innocent life destroyed against her own will,’ [ADF Attorney Matt Bowman] reports.”

LifeSiteNews: “A 16-year-old girl secured a temporary restraining order last week from a Texas court that blocks her parents from forcing her to have an abortion against her will . . . ‘No one should be allowed to decide that an innocent life – especially one that belongs to someone else – is worthless,’ said attorney Stephen Casey of Round Rock, who belongs to the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) alliance.”

Reuters: “Among its findings, the report says Muslim pupils and parents in France are increasingly making religious demands on the state school system and that teachers should rebuff these demands by explaining the country’s principle of laïcité, the official separation of church and state.”

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss this: Parents stopped from forcing Texas teen to have abortion.  | MP3 audio 15:00 mins

LifeNews: “With the help of pro-life attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund, a 16-year-old Texas girl has secured a temporary restraining order preventing her parents from forcing her to have an abortion . . . ‘This situation illustrates what a difference it can make when a woman is more fully informed about the true nature of abortion,’ [ADF Attorney Matt Bowman] said.” | ADF News Release

Alliance Defense Fund allied attorneys representing a 16-year-old girl secured a temporary restraining order Monday from a Texas court that blocks her parents from forcing her to have an abortion against her will.

ABC: “Child protective services in Pennsylvania were at her doorstep, taking her 1-day-old baby because they thought Liz was abusing drugs . . . Jameson Hospital in New Castle, Pennsylvania, tests mothers of newborns for drugs. State law allows it, but what the hospital did not consider more closely was poppy seeds.”

The Body (AP): “Helena school district trustees voted 6-3 on Oct. 12 in favor of a revised sex education curriculum . . . But the changes are not enough for some religious and conservative parents who argue that sex education should be taught at home, not at school. ‘This is going to send people into isolation,’ said school board member Trevor Wilkerson. His proposal to send the curriculum back to the planning stage and to highlight the sex education component for further scrutiny was rejected.” | For background, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/state-montana+topic-sex-indoctrination/

Lisa McElroy writing at SCOTUSblog: “Let’s start with Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, a case about whether vaccine manufacturers can be held liable for design defects in their vaccines. In 1986, Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA), providing that vaccine manufacturers cannot be sued for injuries from vaccines if the injuries resulted from side effects that were ‘unavoidable’ . . . The petitioners in this case are the parents of Hannah Bruesewitz, who when she was six months old suffered severe seizures after receiving one of her childhood vaccines . . . This case is a great example of one major class of Supreme Court cases – cases involving statutory interpretation. Here, the parties disagree about what the statutory language of the Act means.”

The Birmingham News: “The Alabama Supreme Court and Alabama Court of Civil Appeals will be on the Samford University campus today to hear oral
arguments in two cases, including one from Bessemer . . . The state Supreme Court will hear an appeal from a case involving parents who were sued for refusing to let grandparents visit their grandchildren.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The state Department of Public Instruction sent a letter to the Cedarburg School District officials on Thursday saying they could be subject to a legal challenge if they continue with their newly adopted ‘opt-in’ policy for certain topics of the sexual education curriculum.”

Tamar R. Birckhead, Graham v. Florida: Justice Kennedy’s Vision of Childhood and the Role of Judges (October 19, 2010). Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy, Vol. 6, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1694788

“This short article examines Graham v. Florida, the United States Supreme Court decision holding that the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause does not permit a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a nonhomicide crime. This article argues that Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion is grounded not only in Roper v. Simmons, which invalidated the death penalty for juvenile offenders on Eighth Amendment grounds, and Kennedy v. Louisiana, which held that the Eighth Amendment prohibited the death penalty for the offense of rape of a child, but in Establishment Clause cases set in the context of public schools and Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause cases upholding parental notification requirements for teenagers seeking abortions. Whereas many journalists and scholars consider Justice Kennedy a ‘legal pragmatist’ who lacks an overarching philosophy to guide his decision-making, in each of these opinions his view of childhood and the proper role of judges is consistent: children and adolescents are unformed works in progress, in the midst of both character and brain development, who are particularly susceptible to direct as well as indirect forms of coercion; as a result, when determining what liberty interests are protected by the United States Constitution, the role of judges and the courts is to ensure that youth mitigates rather than aggravates. Further, although juvenile justice advocates have heralded Graham as a clear victory, the opinion may raise as many questions as it seeks to answer.”

ADF President Alan Sears writes at TellADF.org: “It’s one pretty dependable sign that you’re doing the right thing when you find the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Atheist Alliance International, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation lined up against you in a single case. That’s just a sampling of the extraordinary opposition aggravated by and aggregated against the notion that parents should have the freedom to choose where their children go to school. And right now, that collective legal hostility is directed specifically toward destroying the choice permitted by the tuition tax credit in Arizona . . . ”

Tom Strode writes at Baptist Press: “Southern Baptist public policy leader Richard Land has urged 11 Republican senators to oppose a United Nations treaty critics say would undermine parental rights and American sovereignty.”

Marci Hamilton writes at Findlaw: “Child safety has routinely been undermined by religious organizations arguing for religious liberty “guarantees” in cases involving medical neglect by faith-healing parents; the regulation of religious schools, camps and social-service providers; and child sex abuse by clergy. I discussed these issues in some detail in my 2007 book God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law, so Professor Dwyer’s remarks did not surprise me, but they apparently did surprise many in the law-and-religion field — testifying, I suppose, to the larger problem of the overspecialization of law professors. On the RFRA issue, as I will explain, it is the family-law professors who are correct: RFRAs were, and continue to be, a dangerous legal innovation.”

Ralph D. Mawdsley, PARENTS’ RIGHT TO DIRECT THEIR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION: EXAMINING THE INTERESTS OF THE PARENTS, THE SCHOOLS, AND THE STUDENTS, 258 Ed. Law Rep. 461 (2010)

(Excerpt below, please use Lexis, Westlaw or comparable service to retrieve the full article)

One of the most fundamental and clearly established constitutional rights under the Liberty Clause is that of parents to direct the education of their children. However, this constitutional right, developed in the context of protecting the right of parents to choose the venue in which their children will be educated, is not absolute and has been asserted in other parental rights cases with mixed results. Thus for example, the right of parents to make educational choices may apply to the venues of education, but not necessarily to curricular choices or noncurricular activities within those venues. The right of parents to direct the education of their children does not necessarily apply equally to both of the natural or adoptive parents and, thus, the rights of custodial parents under state law best interest of the child analysis may be sufficient to resist efforts by noncustodial parents to circumvent state law and assert parental rights under the Liberty Clause. Public school districts that seek to punish public school employees for enrolling their children in private schools may find that the Liberty Clause can exert a long reach in protecting such parent decisions.
The emergence of constitutional rights for students in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District has added a new dimension to the discussion about parent rights. While litigation concerning alleged violations of student rights almost invariably involves parents as plaintiffs, the question that still remains is whether minor students could assert rights in opposition to those of their parents. Thus, for example, in balancing the parents’ interest in their child’s education and the child’s constitutional right to privacy, can minor children assert privacy rights to prohibit parent access to academic information from their school?
At stake is a fundamental definition of the parent-child relationship. As originally defined by the Supreme Court in the three Liberty Clause cases discussed below, constitutional protection for the right of parents to make decisions for, act on behalf of, and have access to information concerning their children touches on a variety of legal issues. The purpose of this article is to examine how judicial interpretations of the Liberty Clause have affected the rights of parents, school districts, and students.

The article is divided into five main parts. Part I analyzes the three Supreme Court decisions that framed the Liberty Clause right of parents to make decisions regarding the venue for their children’s education. Part II examines the impact of the Liberty Clause on the rights of custodial and noncustodial parents, as determined under state law using best interest of the child analysis. Part III discusses how the Liberty Clause can affect adverse employment decisions by school districts against public school employee parents who have made nonpublic educational choices for their children. Part IV explores how the Liberty Clause right of parents to direct their children’s education has been affected by four decades of judicial development of the constitutional rights of students. Part V reflects on discussions in the first four Parts and suggests implications for legal and education practitioners.

KULR (AP): “Opponents of a revised sex education plan for Helena schools are bashing the new version for teaching too much, too soon, while supporters are lauding it as necessary instruction.”

The Courier-Journal: “A boy at the center of a court battle between an Indiana couple who wants to adopt him and his biological father in Ohio left a Floyd County court building Tuesday night in the arms of his adoptive father, but there was no clear indication of where he would stay.” Background from CBS.

Zenit: “The Holy See is stressing the necessary role of parents in the lives of their children, especially in the area of education on sexuality. This was one of the points underlined by the Holy See delegation to the 2010 U.N. World Youth Conference in Leon, which took place Aug. 23-26.”

John A. Humbach, Teens, Porn and Videogames: Time to Rethink Ginsberg? (September 26, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1682982

“This term the Supreme Court will decide whether states can constitutionally ban sales of violent videogames to minors. In reaching its decision, the Court will inevitably be faced with how to deal with Ginsberg v. New York, the case that allowed states to forbid sales of non-obscene (constitutionally “protected”) pornography to persons under age 17.

The opinion in Ginsberg, if not the result, is an odd duck in First Amendment jurisprudence. It is a case that applied ‘rational basis’ review in an area where the Supreme Court now insists on strict scrutiny. But the Court predicated its use of rational basis review on reasoning that was analytically flawed. Not only was the reasoning circular but it was founded on the startling idea that states have the power to modify the scope of a constitutional concept (i.e., obscenity) and, therefore, to cut down constitutional rights.

It is doubtful that Ginsberg could be decided on the same reasoning today and, on its record, it probably could not have the same outcome. Rather than gloss over or ignore the analytical flaws of Ginsberg, the Court should take the occasion to rethink Ginsberg and to place this area of law, and minors’ constitutional rights, on a sounder footing that is in harmony with the rest of First Amendment law.”

ABC: “Northwest Indiana school systems today begin excluding students who have not yet received three new immunizations mandated by the state and federal government.”

UPI: “Robert Meltzer, a Framingham, Mass., a constitutional law lawyer, said the Wellesley School District’s May field trip to a mosque violated the sixth-grade students’ First Amendment rights because they were too young to sanction the religious message, The Boston Globe reported Wednesday.”

Ynet: “The numbers of same-sex families who adopted children has doubled during the past year, according to data published Monday by the ministry . . . Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog introduced a reform to adoption regulations, which allowed women to officially adopt the children of their partners . . . The next stage Herzog is planning will also enable male couples to officially adopt the biological child of their partner, born to a surrogate mother in Israel or abroad.”

Typically Spanish: “The judge in First Instance Court 15 in Valencia has decided to annul the entry made in the Consular Civil Registry in Los Angeles, by a Spanish gay male married couple who were registered as the parents of twins. The twins were born legally in the United States by a surrogate mother.”

“Although mental-health experts disagree on whether people should make such a dramatic transition at a young age, children as young as 5 are doing it. They’re changing their names, insisting on a new pronoun and altering their appearance with new clothes and hairstyles . . . What should schools do about restrooms and locker rooms? How do they make sure everybody uses the correct pronouns? How should teachers explain the situation to curious classmates?”

Associated Press: “The government says nearly all U.S. teens have had formal sex education, but only about two-thirds have been taught about birth control methods.”

Fox News: “A New York couple is suing a Catholic high school for refusing to grant a religious exemption that would allow their 14-year-old son to enroll in ninth grade without state-required vaccinations, claiming immunizations are a ‘violation of God’s supreme authority.’”

“After the birth, Daniel insisted Karen get a passport for the boy, so he could visit his native Brazil. When she refused, Daniel sued her for joint legal and physical custody.”

CBS: “The first court award in a vaccine-autism claim is a big one. CBS News has learned the family of Hannah Poling will receive more than $1.5 million dollars for her life care; lost earnings; and pain and suffering for the first year alone . . . In acknowledging Hannah’s injuries, the government said vaccines aggravated an unknown mitochondrial disorder Hannah had which didn’t ’cause’ her autism, but ‘resulted’ in it. It’s unknown how many other children have similar undiagnosed mitochondrial disorder. All other autism ‘test cases’ have been defeated at trial.”

Los Angeles Times / Company Town: “The video game industry on Friday filed its brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, outlining its best arguments against a 2005 California law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to minors . . . The 78-page document can be boiled down to four main points: 1) Video games should be considered an art form, alongside movies, books and music . . . 2) The law is a solution in search of a problem . . . 3) Violent games are not necessarily harmful . . . 4) The law’s definition of violence is vague.”

Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association at SCOTUSblog

Los Angeles Times: “Girding itself for its final battle, the video game industry will lay out its arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on why California’s ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors violates the developers’ free speech rights. The industry, expected to file its brief with the high court late Friday, seeks to overturn the state statute as it also takes on family advocates who argue that parents should be able to determine whether their children get exposed to violent media.”

Edge Boston (Warning: ads advocating homosexual conduct): “Anti-gay groups worried that efforts to promote safe schools and counter bullying say that Christians who believe gays are ‘sinners’ are being sidelined and ‘belittled’ . . . ‘We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled,’ [Focus on the Family's] education expert, Candi Cushman, said . . . The Post noted that Cushman had created True Tolerance, a website that purports to help parents ‘respond in a loving and fact-based way’ . . . to ‘homosexual advocacy’ in schools. The site offers materials prepared in conjunction with anti-gay groups the Alliance Defense Fund . . . and Exodus International . . .”

PipeLineNews.org: “This five page bill seems simple and straight forward, but it isn’t. It is a lot of words designed to hide the fact that the state’s legislators seek authority to mandate that schools be responsible for administering vaccinations to your child including HPV2 Cervarix for girls ages 10-25 or HPV 4 Gardasil for boys ages 9-26. That would be compulsory vaccinations without parental consent or notification.” AB354. Juan Arambula, [D- Fresno] Immunizations.

Phyllis Schlafly writing at Townhall: “Extremely violent and addictive video games are polluting the minds of an entire generation of children, and most parents are clueless. Young players earn game points based on how many murders they commit, with increasingly realistic bloodshed splattered around for teenagers and pre-teens to learn to enjoy . . . A case challenging a law limiting the sale of these violent video games to children is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. This case reached the High Court because a couple of lower federal court judges, the kind we call supremacists, ruled that these games are entitled to as much free-speech protection as, for example, Shakespeare, and laws limiting sales to children are unconstitutional . . . Eleven state attorneys general have joined a friend-of-the-court (amicus) brief on the side of California to stop the sale of violent video games to children: Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia.”

Salt Lake Tribune: “John Wyatt of Dumfries, Va., is trying to get custody of his daughter, Emma, who was given up for adoption to a Utah couple by the girl’s mother without his consent. His mother, Jeri Wyatt, is helping her son try to gain custody.”

LifeNews: “Just days after Alaska voters approved a new law allowing parents to be notified when their teenage daughter is considering an abortion, the Planned Parenthood abortion business is preparing to push teens into using provisions, meant for abused kids, to keep all parents in the dark.”

Recognizing and Regulating Home Schooling in California: Balancing Parental and State Interests in Education
Paul A. Alarcón, 13 Chap. L. Rev. 391 (2010)

“Part I of this Comment summarizes the history of education in America discussing in particular the emergence of modern home schooling. Part II considers the conflict between the governmental and parental interests in education created by home schooling and provides an in-depth analysis of these dueling interests. Part III concludes with a proposal for enacting a home school exemption to California’s compulsory school attendance statute, a consideration of limitations adopted by other states, and a proposal for adopting two specific home schooling restrictions.”

97.9% of precincts reporting 55.49% YES, 44.51% NO.

Jonathan Adler writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: “Do parents have a constitutionally protected property interest in the dead body of their child, including all organs? Not necessarily is the answer given by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Albrecht v. Treon, at least under Ohio law as interpreted by the Ohio Supreme Court.” | Related post: Ohio Court Debates Rights to Body Parts [1.23.2008]

Amos N. Guiora, Protecting the Unprotected: Religious Extremism and Child Endangerment (2010). Journal of Law & Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, p. 391, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1659783

“This Article’s primary thesis is that male and female children alike are victims of child abuse and neglect in the name of FLDS religious doctrine. While others have addressed ‘terror in the name of God’ (attacking internal and external targets alike) child endangerment in the religion paradigm is, I suggest, fundamentally different. Simply put, it is the deliberate injury to one’s own child predicated on religious faith, in particular religious extremism. To that end, this Article will focus on the danger to members of an internal community (members of a particular faith) rather than to an external community (members of other faiths).”

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska writing at The Christian Post / Advancing Religious Liberty: “A couple months ago in June, attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund and the Home School Legal Defense Association filed Johansson v. Sweden with the European Court of Human Rights so that that the Swedish government will return a seven-year-old homeschooled boy to his parents. Dominic Johansson was forcibly seized by Swedish authorities from his parents in June 2009 after they had boarded a plane in their move to India. The reason? He was homeschooled . . . So, could Europe’s degree of intolerance and crackdown on homeschooling reach American shores anytime soon? It all depends on how vigilant we are in opposing decisions like the one in New Hampshire—and it’s precisely why ADF is fighting to protect parental rights in that case and abroad so that a very nasty cancer is not allowed to grow.

Race and Education at a Crossroads: How Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Wisconsin v. Yoder Shed Light on the Potential Conflict Between the Black Homeschooling Movement and K-12 Affirmative Action Programs
Consuelo Valenzuela Lickstein, 13 J. Gender Race & Just. 835 (2010)

“This Note analyzes the constitutional issues involved in the hypothetical described above. Part II.A discusses some of the reasons why black parents elect to homeschool their children. Parts II.B and II.C review the case law addressing a parent’s fundamental right to direct his or her child’s upbringing and diversity as a compelling state interest. Parts III.A and III.B set forth some of the arguments that the black parents who seek to homeschool their children and school district would make before the Supreme Court. Part III.C discusses how the Court is likely to analyze the arguments set forth by each party and predicts that the Court will rule in favor of the school district.”

Maternal and Joint Custody Presumptions for Unmarried Parents: Constitutional and Policy Considerations in Massachusetts and Beyond
Bernardo Cuadra, 32 W. New Eng. L. Rev. 599 (2010)

“This Note examines the statutory custodial presumptions that distinguish the unmarried father from the unmarried mother, as well as from divorcing parents, with a focus on Massachusetts legal custody awards. Given the gender-based distinction built into these statutes and the distinctions drawn between the putative father and the divorcing father, this Note first asks if these statutes are subject to constitutional challenge. Second, this Note questions if these statutes reflect sound policy decisions by evaluating the benefits of joint custody arrangements. Third, this Note focuses on the Massachusetts custody statute to determine if it can be more narrowly crafted to protect the interests of willing and involved unwed fathers, especially those similarly situated to their child’s unwed mother. This Note ultimately argues that the Massachusetts statutes should be amended to ensure equal treatment of unmarried fathers in custody disputes.”

Peter LaBarbera writes at Spero News: “1) . . . federalized homosexual ‘marriage’ would override the documented will of the people in the 31 states . . . 2) Legalized homosexual ‘marriage’ will force businessmen and -women to subsidize homosexual relationships even if they rightly believe that those relationships are immoral and deviant . . . 3) Legalized homosexual ‘marriage’ paves the way for even greater pro-homosexuality indoctrination in the nation’s schools . . . 4) . . . public school parents would be barred from preventing proudly partnered homosexuals from teaching their kids . . . 5) . . . school textbooks will be re-written to validate homosexual ‘marriages’ . . . 6) . . . it becomes a very effective and practical tool in the further demonization and denigration of traditional religion in the USA . . . 7) . . . adoption agencies that adhere to that time-test natural model of family will be forced by state bureaucracies to place childen in homes that are motherless or fatherless by design . . .”

Juneau County Star Times: “The controversial bill, signed into law by Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle in February, requires schools that choose to teach human growth and development education provide students with a comprehensive curriculum – one that includes contraceptive devices and sexually transmitted diseases.”

ChristianNewsWire: “This morning, Thomas More Society attorneys delivered the justices of the Illinois Supreme Court a motion to immediately transfer the legal case pending against the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 from the Appellate Court to the Supreme Court. Arguing that pregnant minors at risk for abortion suffer harm every day that the Act is not enforced, the Society invoked the Supreme Court rule allowing transfer of an appeal when the ‘public interest requires prompt adjudication.’

KSTK: “Alaskan voters will decide this month whether the parents of pregnant teens have to be notified if their minor child is going to have an abortion.” Audio at link. | Alaska Parental Notification Initiative, Ballot Measure 2 (2010)

Dr. Jim Garlow writing at Renewing American Leadership: “Once the government has a vested interested in affirming and protecting so-called gay ‘marriage,’ three losses become apparent. First, there is a loss of personal freedoms; secondly, there is a loss of parental rights; and thirdly, there is a loss of religious liberties.”

OneNewsNow: “The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to decide a child custody battle that has an unusual twist. Alliance Defense Fund (ADF)-allied attorney David Dye tells OneNewsNow the fight over the child developed after ‘a mom and a dad had a baby [and] subsequently divorced. Both parties got remarried, and then unfortunately mom died. But even more unfortunately, mom’s new husband was given custody of their child.’”

Leonard Link: “A five-member panel of the New York Appellate Division, 2nd Department, unanimously ruled on August 3 that a woman is obligated to make child support payments to her former same-sex partner. Reconsidering the case after the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, had reversed the appellate division’s previous ruling that the Family Court did not have jurisdiction over the child support claim because New York State did not recognize the non-biological mother as a parent of the child, the Appellate Division panel now endorsed the use of the doctrine of equitable estoppel to resolve the case. In the Matter of H.M. v. E.T., 2007-09323 (Aug. 3, 2010).”

The Australian: “School dinners for thousands of pupils in Britain will contain only halal meat from next month. The move comes despite anger from parents who are opposed to the religious slaughter of animals. Meat from animals killed in accordance …

“The appeal asks the court to determine whether a state that permits any legal stranger to seek custody of a child over the objections of the child’s fit parents violates the parents’ constitutional right to raise their own children.”

Dr. Miriam Grossman, via the Ruth Institute Blog: “Who came up with the notion that it’s necessary to teach the world’s children about high risk sex acts their parents never heard of? The usual suspects: Planned Parenthood and the Sexuality Education and Information Council of the United States (SEICUS, a private organization). These groups portray themselves as guardians of our children’s health; they claim to provide students with all the information and skills they need to make smart choices. Their curricula, they declare, are comprehensive, age appropriate, ideologically neutral, and medically accurate. They give children the same message as parents: you’re too young – wait until you’re older.”

Wausau Daily Herald: “Ten months after Dale and Leilani Neumann were sentenced to six months in jail each for the death of their daughter, the couple has not served a single day and their appeal process is bogged down by a series of delays.”

Center for Arizona Policy: “This report provides a summary of Center for Arizona Policy’s (CAP) work during the 2010 legislative session.”

Manila Standard Today: “The legal battle over the Education Department’s plan to introduce sex education in public schools is over, at least for now, after Church-based oppositors withdrew their suit Thursday.”

Smacking Lesson: How the Council of Europe’s Ban on Corporal Punishment Could Serve as a Model for the United States
Timothy John Nolen, 16 Cardozo J.L. & Gender 519 (2010)

“Part I of this Note will discuss statistics concerning corporal punishment in the United States, focusing on the negative effects such punishment has on children and suggesting why it should be outlawed. Part II will address the legal status of corporal punishment in the United States and the potential challenges a complete federal ban might face, suggesting means whereby the Federal government could implement a national ban. Part III will discuss the legal status of corporal punishment in some member states of the Council of Europe. Part IV will address the effects that European bans have had on discouraging corporal punishment. Finally, Part V will examine the Council of Europe’s recent campaign to ban corporal punishment throughout Europe as a model for the United States Federal government.”

The Sydney Morning Herald (AFP): “Officials in the Swiss city of Basel have fined five Muslim families for refusing to allow their daughters to attend compulsory swimming classes in school, Swiss news agency ATS reports.”

LifeNews: “Planned Parenthood is bringing in the big bucks in its campaign to persuade Alaska voters that they should not support a ballot measure in August that would allow parents to know when their minor daughters are considering an abortion. Jim Minnery, the chairman of Alaskans for Parental Rights, is battling back.” | Alaska Parental Notification Initiative, Ballot Measure 2 (2010) on Ballotpedia

Beverly K. Eakman writing at The New American: “After some 40 years of psychiatry-based ‘parenting,’ free societies are experiencing behaviors by out-of-control children virtually unknown in the 1950s … Advocates for a Nanny State see all this as a wedge to further their controlling agenda. Anyone curious as to where we’re headed need look no further than the United Kingdom’s now-institutionalized ASBO legislation. … Eight years into the legislation, some 12,675 ASBOs had been issued. Nearly 2,000 youngsters, aged 10 to 17, were jailed by 2007 for an average of six months each for breaching ASBOs. … How did it come to this?”

Eugene Volokh writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: “That’s the issue in In re Adoption of A.M., decided yesterday by the Indiana Court of Appeals. The biological father was fine with the adoption, which terminated father’s parental rights — the plan was basically for the grandfather (on the mother’s side) to take on the father role, with the mother retaining her role as mother. Indiana law appears not to allow this; the relevant statutes provide that an adoption severs both biological parents’ parental rights, unless ‘the adoptive parent of a child is married to a biological parent [or previous adoptive parent] of the child.’ There is no provision for a child’s parents to switch from biomom+biodad to biomom+someone who isn’t married to biomom.”

The Christian Institute: “Parents are ‘rarely’ consulted about their children’s lessons involving sex education, a new Ofsted report has said. The study, by the Government’s schools inspectorate, found that some schools were failing to help children to ‘say no’ to sex, in their Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education lessons.”

OneNewsNow: “From condoms for young children in Provincetown to sex education for kindergartners in Helena, Katie Reid — author of When the Bough Breaks — believes the intent of such actions is to provide children a means to engage in sexual relations with fewer possible side effects. But as Reid points out, there are more consequences to sex than just pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.”

Redefining the Legal Family: Protecting the Rights of Coparents and the Best Interests of Their Children
Marissa Wiley, 38 Hofstra L. Rev. 319 (2009)

“Part II of this Note begins by explaining the ways in which a gay or lesbian coparent can claim some degree of parental rights over his or her former partner’s biological child, who was planned for, conceived, and raised within the context of a committed same-sex relationship. The benefits and weaknesses of every method are examined in each section of this Part. Section A details second-parent adoption. Section B describes coparenting agreements. Section C discusses the judicial doctrines of de facto parenthood, in loco parentis, and equitable estoppel. Section D expounds the legislative solutions of same-sex marriage, alternatives to marriage, and third party statutes. Part III turns to the evolution of the rights of coparents in New York State, examining the past in Section A and detailing the transition to the present in Section B. Section B reviews New York State’s approach to each method of asserting parental rights. Part IV identifies changes that need to be made in the law of New York in order to suit the needs of the modern family. Part V concludes that each remedy must be available to same-sex coparents to protect the best interests of the children of same-sex couples.”

KRTV: “The Helena School Board is taking the controversial human sexuality portion of the proposed health curriculum back to staff for some additions. After a flood of public comment in recent weeks, the executive committee decided to push back its decision; the board was going to vote on the curriculum in August, but now Superintendent Bruce Messinger says it will be more like October.”

The Christian Institute: “A new amendment to the Government’s Academies Bill has been tabled by Labour as part of an ongoing push to force sex education on children as young as five. Former Education Secretary Ed Balls has put forward plans for Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) to be compulsory for all pupils in academy schools.”

Daily Mail (see photos of the children): “They look like happy, healthy children – and that is exactly what they are. So it would take a particularly cruel and misguided sort to call Gracie Hill and Bailey Russell fat. Step forward interfering NHS officials. They singled out the five-year-olds from their classmates and wrote to their parents, claiming the pair are overweight and at risk of health problems including cancer.”

LifeSiteNews: “The Chilean Chamber of Deputies has issued a ringing condemnation of Spain’s new abortion law, which removes all penalties for abortions up to the 14th week of gestation and permits adolescent girls to obtain abortions without their parents’ consent.”

Religion Clause: “Applying the rule that ‘a parent’s religious beliefs and practices may not be considered by the trial court as a basis to deprive [a] parent of custody unless there is a showing of actual harm to the health or welfare of the child,’ a Kansas appellate court, in a 2-1 decision, has rejected a Muslim father’s objections to granting of residential custody to his son’s mother because of her practices as a Jehovah’s Witness.” | Harrison v. Tauheed (KS Ct. App., July 16, 2010)

OneNewsNow: “After serving California for more than a decade as chief justice, Ronald M. George is finally resigning — news that has conservatives breathing a sigh of relief. … ‘He is a judicial activist and pulls his own views and political opinions,’ Huey explains. ‘For Christians, he was an enemy of First Amendment rights. As a judicial activist, he was an advocate of social engineering. He also did a lot of other harm.’”

AP: “President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva sent a bill to Congress on Wednesday proposing that Brazil join the two dozen or so countries around the world that have moved to curb spanking.”