Four Decades of Decline
Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, July 15, 2016 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler
Georgia parents lost authority over their children’s healthcare in the late 1960s when government clinics decided to defy parental authority and provide “safe-sex” items and devices, prescription medication, and abortion referrals to children without parental consent.
When the Public Health Department extended specialized outreach to minors by creating Teen Clinics in 39 Georgia counties, forces determined to gain total access to children were not satisfied. Although public schools were equipped with a clinic and nurse on the premises, pressure began to build for comprehensive medical clinics in all public schools.
During his years in office (1983 – 1991), to quell the concern of parents, Governor Joe Frank Harris deleted a line-item in the state budget that would have funded comprehensive healthcare clinics in public schools.The succeeding governor, Roy Barnes, reversed the action of Governor Harris and funded school-based clinics nine years later. Barnes stated that the goal of his A-Plus Education Reform Act of 2000 was for school nurses to provide complete and comprehensive medical care for students, staff and their families, plus the entire population of the school district.
Add to that the CDC sex education curriculum published in the early 1990s and the demise of parental control over children’s health care was complete. Situation ethics is the philosophy of the CDC curriculum. So, students are taught that nothing is more wrong than right and nothing is more right than wrong. Legal and moral questions are never discussed; international values replace community values; and students are taught they have a right to be sexually active any time, at any age with either or both sexes.
Georgia’s sex education law requires standards to include instruction that upholds local community values. Howevr, CDC’s curriculum says, “Although a community standard may be ‘teenagers should abstain from sex,’ the reality is that many teenagers are not abstinent…. [So] this curriculum addresses options other than abstinence.” So, the CDC sex education courses are designed to promote personal autonomy in sexual conduct, at the expense of community standards and parental authority.
Original one-time biology courses in health and hygiene morphed into K – 12 training about sexuality, alternate lifestyles, and gender identity, with the latest major focus on trans-gender. For documentation, search online for “National Sexuality Education Standards, Core Content and Skills, K – 12.” Goals of the Standards are stated as what students “should know (learn) and be able to do (perform).”
Although parents must try to ameliorate the harm caused by “safe-sex” and “family planning” services, clinics hide behind confidentiality when parents ask about their minor’s treatment. For Georgia Insight, I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent