PARENTS UNDER GROWING ASSAULT 
By BOB WARD
Editor of the Texas Journal

   Many Americans sense that parents and the family are losing 
the right to raise their children.  We hear about a school 
incident in one place, a court decision in another, a health 
policy somewhere else. It all contributes to a feeling that 
parents are no longer in control but instead serve at the 
pleasure of the government.
   Perhaps the clearest evidence that parents are alarmed is the 
initiative in Colorado which will, if passed, make parental rights 
explicit in the state's constitution.  It is opposed by health 
professionals and educators. 
   Patrick Fagan at the Heritage Foundation has compiled and 
analyzed such incidents in the context of case law and cultural 
traditions, and finds that parents' instincts are correct -- their 
rights are being violated. 
    Fagan points out that in a series of cases from 1923 to 1979 
the Supreme Court has recognized that parents' rights are 
fundamental and cannot be abrogated except for a "compelling 
state interest." 
   Despite these precedents, Fagan reports, legislatures, 
bureaucratic agencies and courts have substituted the vague 
and subjective standard of "the child's best interests" which re-
quires no finding of neglect or unfitness on the part of the 
parents -- merely the preference of a bureaucrat.
   In some instances, he said, legislatures and courts have 
shifted the burden to the parents to show why they should be 
allowed to retain authority over their children.  In 
Massachusetts, for example, the effect of a series of rulings is 
that "the state is assumed to possess superior authority to 
direct the education and health of the child unless the parents 
can demonstrate otherwise."
   The Washington State Supreme Court approved removing an 
8th grade girl from her home because she objected when her 
parents' wouldn't let her smoke pot, drink alcohol and have sex 
with her boyfriend. 
  Fagan cites abuses from jurisdictions all over the U.S., 
including Texas.  In most cases the violations are led by the 
so-called helping professions: mental health counselors, social 
workers, health officials, and educators.  In some places library 
personnel are forbidden to tell a parent which books his child is 
borrowing. 
    Fagan believes parents' rights must be codified because 
governments increasingly see child rearing as a public matter 
to be controlled by the Village, and this is incompatible with the 
natural rights of a free  people.