Tag: parental rights

Idaho’s Landmark Medical Freedom Act Survives First Legal Challenge

A federal judge last week upheld the Idaho Medical Freedom Act, ruling that daycares cannot require children to receive vaccines or other medical interventions. Attorney General Raúl Labrador said the ruling confirms that “parents make medical decisions for their children. A daycare does not.”

A federal judge has upheld Idaho’s new medical freedom law, ruling that daycares cannot require children to receive vaccines or other medical interventions as a condition of attendance.

Chief U.S. District Judge Amanda K. Brailsford last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Boise-area daycare and three parents who challenged the Idaho Medical Freedom Act. The act, signed into law in April, prohibits most medical mandates, including vaccines.

Brailsford rejected the plaintiffs’ claims that the law is unconstitutionally vague, violates parents’ rights or infringes on the daycare’s First Amendment rights.

Leslie Manookian, president of the Health Freedom Defense Fund and author of the law, said the ruling confirmed what she intended the law to do.

“Medical freedom, the right to make one’s own medical choices, is such a sacred and basic human right it astounds me that anyone could see otherwise,” Manookian told The Defender.

She said the law “protects an individual from public and private actors bullying, coercing and intruding into their personal and private medical choices or punishing them for their choices.”

Manookian also said she was “delighted that the federal court interpreted the law … as a safeguard against overreach” by government and private actors, including daycares.

‘A daycare does not’ make medical decisions

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, whose office defended the law, said the ruling confirms that parents — not businesses — are in charge of their children’s health.

“Parents make medical decisions for their children. A daycare does not,” Labrador said in a Sept. 22 statement. “The Legislature protected that choice in the Medical Freedom Act, and the court upheld it.”

Labrador added that daycares can continue telling parents what they believe about vaccines and health, but “they cannot turn a child away because of a parent’s medical decision.”

The attorneys representing Le Soleil Child Care LLC and the parents said they may appeal.

“Our clients are obviously disappointed by the district court’s ruling and the narrow manner in which it interpreted the right at issue,” attorney Andrea Carone said in a statement to the Idaho Statesman.

Carone argued that the law leaves daycares unable to take what the plaintiffs consider “reasonable steps” to protect children from diseases that vaccines can prevent. She called it “a clear public health issue” that the Idaho Legislature must address.

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SPLC, FBI, TSA and ANTIFA Colluded Against Illinois Parent After He Fought Porn in Schools — New DOJ Report Ties It to Garland Memo

Biden DoJ sent the FBI to Terry Newsomes home March of 2023 under the false pretense of an investigation of ANTIFA targeting parents. At the time, Newsome didn’t know he was under an FBI investigation.

A Downers Grove, Illinois father who stood up at a school board meeting against the graphic book “Gender Queer” became the target of a tightly timed campaign that moved from an SPLC Hatewatch article written by a Chicago ANTIFA-linked researcher straight into federal action.

FOIA records, TSA documents obtained by Congress, and the sequence of events show that the pattern is not a coincidence. His case fits the broader pattern documented in the Department of Justice’s October 5, 2026 Weaponization Working Group report on the Garland Memorandum, which traced how the Biden Administration pressured DOJ to treat parents objecting to school policies—including explicit materials, CRT, and transgender policies—as potential domestic terrorists

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AG Todd Blanche Releases Explosive Report Exposing Merrick Garland’s Weaponization of Government Against School Parents and Efforts to Label Them ‘Domestic Terrorists’ and Arrest Them!

Attorney General Todd Blanche released an explosive report on Monday exposing former AG Merrick Garland’s weaponization against parents of school children.

The title itself should send a chill down your spine. This is something straight out of the Marxist handbook!

AG Todd Blanche wrote on X:

Todd Blanche:  Five years ago, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued an infamous memorandum at the urging of the National School Boards Association and White House officials, directing the FBI and United States Attorneys to consider looking for a federal hook to prosecute parents exercising their right to free speech.

Today, we are releasing the “Report to Expose the Weaponization of Government Against Parents in Schools” which details Weaponization of the Department against these parents — from attempting to get the National Security Division involved to ignoring repeated warnings from employees that leadership’s actions could be unconstitutional.

Along with the report, we’ve released hundreds of exhibits and emails that make official and verify what many Americans had guessed: the Garland DOJ worked hand in hand with WH officials and the National School Boards Association to chill free speech and parental rights while they threatened to prosecute parents and label them domestic terrorists. 

Here is a copy of the report, titled: The 2026 Report to Expose the Weaponization of Government Against Parents in Schools

The report is 273 pages long including 250 pages of exhibits and emails that confirm Attorney General Merrick Garland worked with the Biden White House to chill free speech and parents rights.

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SHOCK: Devout Catholic Parents in Massachusetts Say State Took Custody of Their Teen Daughter After they Refused to Affirm Her as a Boy

A devout Catholic couple in Massachusetts said the state took custody of their teenage daughter after they refused to affirm her as a boy.

Joseph and Arlene Kutzko said they have been fighting in court for nearly two years after their minor teen daughter Sophie was taken away from them because they would not recognize the child as a boy.

In December 2024, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) took Sophie away and is now beginning the process of medically transitioning her with testosterone.

The distraught parents alleged that the counselors at Algonquin Regional High School secretly began the process of socially transitioning their daughter without their permission.

A restraining order was lodged against the parents with allegations of abuse.

The DCF put the teen girl in a boys’ dormitory, put her on psychiatric drugs, and gave her birth control.

The couple has not spoken to their daughter Sophie, who is now 17 years old, in nearly two years.

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ADF Demands Colorado District Scrap or Overhaul Sex-Ed Curriculum

A national religious-liberty legal organization has sent a formal letter to Colorado’s Roaring Fork School District demanding it discontinue its human sexuality curriculum or, at minimum, overhaul how parents are notified and allowed to exclude their children from it.

Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, sent the letter Tuesday to the Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education and Superintendent Anna Cole, escalating a dispute over the district’s “3Rs” curriculum – short for Rights, Respect, Responsibility – that has simmered in the Roaring Fork Valley for months.

What ADF is alleging

In the letter and in a subsequent social media statement, ADF argued the curriculum exposes children as young as 5 to graphic and ideologically driven material about human sexuality, including anatomical images that are followed by quizzes asking students to identify body parts such a nipple, vulva, and clitoris. The group also said lessons direct young children to discuss how they like to be touched and to reject a binary understanding of gender.

By sixth grade, according to ADF, students are directed to act as “Sex Ed Sleuths” who research sexual-education websites on their own, with parental permission or involvement only addressed after that research is complete.

The letter goes further in the upper grades. In a seventh-grade lesson titled “I Am Who I Am,” the curriculum teaches students that the idea of choosing one’s sexual orientation or gender identity is a myth, and students are required to affirm that concept on a worksheet, according to ADF.

Eighth graders, the letter states, fill out a separate worksheet rating how “LGBTQ-inclusive” their school is, using measures such as whether the school celebrates Valentine’s Day for LGBTQ couples, displays LGBTQ-themed posters in hallways, and uses the term “parent/guardian” rather than “mom and dad.”

High schoolers complete their own myth-or-fact worksheet affirming that a person cannot change his or her sexual orientation and are instructed to avoid terms like “homosexual” or “straight,” ADF’s letter states. The letter also says the high school curriculum favors gender-inclusive phrasing – using a term for female anatomy in place of “girl or woman” – as part of its approach to gender inclusivity.

ADF’s letter is also sharply critical of how the district structures parental notice and opt-outs. The group alleges Roaring Fork requires only two weeks’ notice before a 3Rs lesson is taught, that some parents receive even less, and that the district’s opt-out process is difficult to find – a paper opt-out letter placed in a student’s take-home folder, paired with a digital version the letter says is often buried among other announcements on the Remind app and labeled generically as “health education,” which obscures its content from parents. ADF argues this system was deliberately designed to preserve high participation rates rather than to give parents a genuine choice, contrasting it with the district’s own stated goal of ensuring students have access to health education.

The letter cites the case of a Crystal River Elementary School parent whose kindergartner brought home the “Understanding Our Bodies” lesson plan in January 2026. According to ADF, the opt-out form included in the folder did not specify a lesson date, only stating the lesson would occur “the following month,” and did not include the graphic slides that would accompany the lesson.

The school listed the curriculum under different names in different places, ADF’s letter states, referring to it as “Comprehensive Health Curriculum” in the take-home folder and simply “Health Curriculum” in a monthly online newsletter – where the announcement was mixed in with other school news and required parents to click through a link in the Remind app to find it.

ADF, which describes itself as the world’s largest legal organization focused on religious freedom, free speech, and parental rights, framed the core issue as a constitutional one: automatic enrollment in the lessons, combined with what it called inconsistent notice to parents and, in some cases, no meaningful opportunity to opt children out.

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Minister strips parental access to children’s health records

Newfoundland parents just got the memo: Once your kid turns 12, the government says you’re no longer automatically entitled to know what’s in their medical records.

A June 19 letter from NL Health Services quietly ended automatic parental access to children’s health information. From age 12 to 15, parents now need the child’s permission to see the records. At 16, the teenager takes full control.

Sarah James Furlong, a concerned parent, took to social media in a bid to raise awareness of the apparent government assault on parental rights. Furlong is calling on parents to contact the Minister of Health, Lela Evans, to reverse the decision.

“I respect children’s rights and understand the importance of privacy,” Furlong said in a Facebook post. “However, I believe parents have a fundamental responsibility to protect, support, and advocate for their children—and that responsibility doesn’t end when a child turns 12.”

The move fits a pattern. Newfoundland and Labrador already lets students in Grade 7 and up change their names and pronouns at school without parental consent. Now the same province is extending that logic into medical records.

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California’s Gender Secrecy Law Suffers Another Setback in Federal Court

A federal appeals court temporarily blocked a California gender secrecy law that allows schools to hide students’ “gender transitions” from parents. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck another blow to the law on Thursday, siding with the City of Huntington Beach over the State of California. A three-judge panel issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law as litigation continues, specifically citing the Supreme Court’s March ruling against the law in a separate case called Mirabelli v. Bonta. 

“In light of Mirabelli, the Movants are likely to succeed on the merits of their constitutional claim, including the required threshold showing of Article III standing,” the panel wrote.

Nick Barry, senior counsel at America First Legal (AFL) representing the City of Huntington Beach in the case, called the Ninth Circuit’s decision a “powerful vindication of parental rights.”

“California cannot use state law to force schoolteachers and administrators into a conspiracy of silence against parents. California’s law, and similar school policies, use state coercion to intentionally interfere with the parent-child relationship and separate a child from their parent,” Barry said in a statement. “That is wrong and unlawful. The Constitution is clear — parents have the right to know what is happening with their children and make decisions regarding their mental health, and no state law can override that fundamental protection.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the law in July 2024, making California the first state to ban school districts from requiring staff to inform parents if their child changes “gender” identification at school.

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‘Grotesque abuse’: Judge orders homeschooling parents to JAIL for failing to teach daughters government ‘gender’ lessons

In a stunning illustration of what happens when politically correct and biased judges, driven by leftist social agendas, are put behind the bench, one jurist has ordered two homeschooling parents to jail for 50 days for failing to teach their daughters the judge’s version of “gender” education.

The parents now have convictions for “intellectual neglect,” issued by the unidentified Brazilian judge, according to a report from ADF International.

The legal team reported the judge issued his wild opinion that was opposite of even recommendations from prosecutors, who listened to witnesses and results of the social and academic development of the girls, both accomplished pianists who speak multiple languages, and then said the parents should be acquitted.

The judge was accepting no evidence, however, and said the parents were “using their daughters as pawns in an ideological struggle, subjecting them to a form of unregulated education, the effectiveness and quality of which lack adequate metrics within the Brazilian legal system, while completely excluding the State’s involvement.”

The report identified the parents as Audato and Ieda Denardi, and their sentences are suspended while they appeal to a higher court.

The judge also ranted against the parents because he thought the girls, ages 11 and 15, didn’t like Brazilian folk music, leading him to assume that they weren’t educated properly in “diversity.”

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Under Pressure, Michigan Makes It Easier to Opt Out of Vaccine Tracking

Michigan health freedom and privacy advocates scored a win this month when the state’s health department stopped using a vaccine information handout that failed to explain to parents how they can opt out of the state’s vaccine tracking program, and didn’t include an opt-out form.

It’s the latest development in health freedom and privacy advocates’ efforts to get the state health department to stop adding a thick layer of bureaucratic red tape — which isn’t even required under state law — that makes it difficult for families to opt out of vaccines and vaccination tracking.

“While this is definitely a win, there is still a long way to go,” said journalist and Michigan resident Jeremy R. Hammond, who has a 13-year-old unvaccinated son.

Until now, the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services (MDHHS) largely avoided telling parents what the tracking system is and how they can opt out of it, Hammond said.

This matters because the state’s vaccination tracking system, Michigan Care Improvement Registry (MCIR), causes “pressure and coercion” for families who prefer not to vaccinate, according to Dr. Remington Nevin, medical director for the St. Clair County Health Department in rural eastern Michigan.

Dubbed “Michigan’s ‘RFK Jr.’” by Bridge Michigan, Nevin is an epidemiologist with multiple degrees from Johns Hopkins University. He is also a former U.S. Army major and preventive medicine officer.

Nevin spoke with The Defender about why it’s crucial for parents to be able to opt out of MCIR — and how he submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that likely led the state health department to stop using the old form and start making it easier for parents to opt out.

State health department violated Michigan law

The MCIR system sends reminders to medical staff to encourage them to keep their pediatric patients up to date with the American Academy of Pediatrics or the American Academy of Family Physicians childhood vaccine schedule.

When a child visits a clinic, front desk staff and nurses may tell parents their child is due for a particular vaccine, even though “the parent and the child’s physician may have decided together through shared clinical decision-making to not give that shot until later on in the child’s life,” Nevin said.

Michigan law requires the state health department to give parents a form — before vaccinating a child — notifying parents that they can object to having their child automatically enrolled in MCIR.

But for years, MDHHS failed to give parents any such form.

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Girl Kept from Church, Bible, and Christian Friends by Portland Judge Awaits Appeals Court Ruling

Despite her love of Christianity, a young Maine girl has been prevented since 2024 from going to church, attending religious holidays, being “exposed” to the Bible or other scriptural literature, and even having Christian friends — all because of a judge’s order in a parental rights case.

The draconian restrictions have been in place for some 18 months as Emily Bickford and her daughter Ava, 13, wait for a decision on an appeal to the state’s Supreme Court eight months ago after Portland District Judge Jennifer Nofsinger issued the shocking ruling in late 2024 as part of a dispute between the girl’s parents.

Not only has the ruling impacted the lifestyle and pursuit of happiness by both mother and daughter, on its face it appears incompatible with the founding principles of the United States.

The right to worship granted by the First Amendment is not in the grip of any judge to grant or abolish, the Portland mother told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview this week.

“That is not theirs to take away,” Bickford said. “It’s in our Declaration of Independence. Our forefathers knew we had inalienable rights given by God. God gave us the freedom to worship him, and there’s no government that can take that away from us.”

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