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The Supreme Court petitioners in International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. v. Bob Ferguson, Governor of Washington (25-840) are children’s rights organizations and parents of “gender-confused” children. They are challenging Washington State laws concerning minor children who run away from their parents and seek “gender-affirming care”—a euphemism that encompasses “gender-transition” surgery (e.g., genital mutilation) and other types of "treatments."
The certiorari petition’s Introduction encapsulates the issue:
Viewing parents as the problem, Washington passed laws that deliberately target certain parents by supplanting them with the state in the context of gender-confused runaway minors: Whenever a child runs away, so long as he or she asks for “gender-affirming treatment,” a cascade of events is triggered. First, the child is referred for “gender-affirming treatment” without parental notice or consent. Second, parents can be kept in the dark as to the child’s location and condition. And third, reunification can be significantly delayed, with conditions for that reunification uncertain and entirely up to the state.
Despite these real-world harms to children and their parents, a federal district court dismissed the suit for lack of standing, and a Ninth Circuit panel affirmed. Over two strong dissents, the court of appeals denied rehearing en banc.
As part of its effective education/parental rights advocacy mission, ALF has filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to grant review and hold, contrary to the Ninth Circuit, that parents have standing to challenge state laws that abridge parental decision-making rights concerning the health, education, and well-being of their children. The brief was drafted by John M. Reeves of Reeves Law LLC in St. Louis.
ALF’s amicus brief surveys a long line of Supreme Court cases that recognize parents’ natural and legal right to supervise and direct the upbringing of their minor children. Digging deeper, the brief also discusses the English and American common-law underpinnings of this parental right. As ALF’s brief explains, the Washington State laws at issue not only are an affront to this right, but also have lifelong detrimental consequences for the children whom the State exploits in this manner.
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