At the behest of the lobbyists for pharmaceutical companies there is an ongoing problem with the government wanting to take a direct role in mentally screening the children of America. Some might see this as a helpful service which the government could provide for our children, but once the government takes such a responsibility into their own hands you, as parents lose your rights to decide what is best for children.
People are constantly told of the horrors of parental neglect and think that the only recourse is to have government assistance. Eventually such assistance will always be followed with force. Once your child is labeled as requiring certain prescriptions the parents lose the right to decide for themselves what is the proper course of treatment.To eventually enact such legislation is assuming that there is only one answer to the supposed mental problems which may be found with a child. The idea of freedom include deciding for yourself and family what is the best course of action.
There are many issues with over medicating for mental health issues. The lists of side effects alone should prompt any parent to question the validity of giving drugs over older more conventional remedies for mental health. The knowledge of these side effects are widely know, so we must ask ourselves why whenever the government backed by an abundance of lobbyist get involved the amount of drugs prescribed goes up exponentially.
Government Parents Foster Children With Drugs
Parental rights are continually under attack by legislation in this country. The whole world is headed in the direction of socialism and technocracy, where appointed experts always believe that they know better that you about how to live our lives. This is done in the name of improving life for the wellness of the state. This is in direct opposition to freedom because eventually those who think differently will be seen as enemies to the state. This is seen within the example given in the article below. When a parent refuses to medicate their child the answer is to call in SWAT. Parents have to reclaim their rights as such before the government usurps all your rights, if not you will find yourself as only being used for room and board for government raised children. There are many historical examples of such.
Extra Editor's Note: I do not endorse any political candidate because the political system is only there to provide a mandate for politicians to do as they please. In our current political system the people only have the right to choose a representative (assuming the election is fair) who once elected has no responsibility to any oath of office nor campaign promise. Politicians only adhere to to their responsibilities to their parties or sources of funding. This does not detract from the fact that Ron Paul is the most articulate and informed politician when dealing with the issues most important to a free people.
No Mandatory Mental Health Screening for Children!
Ron PaulTuesday, December 13, 2011
Maryanne Godboldo, a mother in Michigan, noticed that pills prescribed by her daughter’s doctor were making her condition worse, not better. So Mrs. Godboldo stopped giving them to her. That’s when the trouble began. When Child Protective Services (CPS) bureaucrats became aware that the girl was not receiving her prescribed medication, they decided the child should be taken away from her mother’s custody on grounds of medical neglect. When Ms. Godboldo refused to surrender her daughter to the state, CPS enlisted the help of a police SWAT team! On March 24 of this year a 12 hour standoff ensued and young Ariana was taken into custody. The drug involved was Risperdal, a neuroleptic antipsychotic medication with numerous known side effects. Ms. Godboldo had decided on a more holistic approach for her daughter. She is still engaged in a costly legal battle with the state over Ariana’s treatment and custody.
To fight this dangerous trend I reintroduced the Parental Consent Act of 2011, HR 2769, which prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health or psychiatric screening program. The previous administration pushed hard for this type of federal intrusion into the medical decisions of families through its wildly misnamed “New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.” Everyone interested in parental rights and true health freedom must fight to make sure the commission’s findings and dubious psychiatric science are never used as justification to force mental health screening on American kids at school without their parents’ consent.
There has been a persistent lobbying effort, funded by pharmaceutical companies, to increase the number of these prescriptions to even more children. A universal screening program is the stated goal of these lobbyists. I would not be at all surprised to see the recent attention to the issue of schoolyard bullying used as a tool towards these ends.
Imagine the potential ramifications of a universal, mandatory psychiatric health screening program in a public school, considering how some bureaucrats are wont to behave! The diagnostic criteria for many mental illnesses remain vague and subjective. Therefore it is all too easy for a bureaucrat in a white coat to label a child with some sort of psychiatric syndrome simply because they were having a bad day, or behaving as a typical rambunctious child. That label could follow them around the rest of their school career and come with a number of prescriptions attached, which the state, as in the Godboldo case, may try to force the parents to administer, whether they want to or not.
I plan to continue the fight to ban federal funding of any universal screening program that imposes mental healthcare screening on children without express informed consent from parents.
