{"id":73,"date":"2008-08-24T14:27:20","date_gmt":"2008-08-24T21:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/?p=73"},"modified":"2024-07-14T05:43:52","modified_gmt":"2024-07-14T10:43:52","slug":"rep-walorski-court-ruling-is-a-victory-for-parental-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2008\/08\/24\/rep-walorski-court-ruling-is-a-victory-for-parental-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Walorski: Court Ruling is a Victory for Parental Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indiana General Assembly<\/span><\/p>\n

House of Representatives<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

News Release<\/span><\/p>\n

State Rep. Jackie Walorski<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Room 401-8, Statehouse<\/span><\/p>\n

Indianapolis, IN \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a046204<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

STATEHOUSE (Aug. 7, 2008) \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The cause of parental rights and personal liberty won a victory Tuesday (August 5) as a federal court affirmed the right of Hoosier parents to sue a school system for subjecting their daughter to mental health testing without their consent.<\/p>\n

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The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana ruled that a lawsuit filed on behalf of Chelsea Rhoades and her parents, Teresa and Michael, may proceed to trial. The family charges that the Penn-Harris-Madison School Corp. violated the family\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s rights when school officials subjected Chelsea, a student at Penn High School in Mishawaka, to the TeenScreen examination without parental consent.<\/p>\n

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\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cI am elated that the federal court is allowing the family the opportunity to pursue this lawsuit,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d said state Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Jimtown) \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cThis kind of testing without parental consent led me to go on a petition drive that collected more than 12,000 names and eventually resulted in a state law requiring written parental approval before screenings such as this.<\/p>\n

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\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cThe court, through its ruling, reaffirms parents\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 right to control their children\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s mental and physical health and wellbeing,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d Rep. Walorski said, \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cand it sends a message to schools and agencies that they should be very, very careful about interfering with parental prerogatives.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d<\/p>\n

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In December 2004, representatives of Madison Mental Health tested Chelsea and other Penn High School students using the TeenScreen, which asks questions that can be answered with only a \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cYes\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d or a \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cNo.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d According to the lawsuit, Chelsea was diagnosed as possibly suffering from two mental health disorders. Several other students also were similarly diagnosed, the lawsuit said. Chelsea\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s diagnosis turned out to be incorrect.<\/p>\n

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The Rhoades family is being assisted in the lawsuit by The Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties organization that provides legal services to people whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated.<\/p>\n

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Mr. and Mrs. Rhoades said they had no knowledge of the testing until after the fact, and they sued in federal court, charging that their constitutional rights to family integrity and privacy were violated. School officials sought to have the suit dismissed.<\/p>\n

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\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cThere are boundaries to keep schools and other agencies from interfering in the parent-child relationship,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d Rep. Walorski said. \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cThose boundaries should not be ignored or taken lightly, and this case shines a light on that issue.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indiana General Assembly House of Representatives News Release State Rep. Jackie Walorski Room 401-8, Statehouse Indianapolis, IN \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a046204 \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 STATEHOUSE (Aug. 7, 2008) \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The cause of parental rights and personal liberty won a victory Tuesday (August 5) as a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-1b","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}