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The measure would bar federally funded state child welfare
systems from removing children from fit parents simply because
the parents affirm their child’s biological sex.
Independent Women Senior Legal Counsel Beth Parlato said
Congress provides substantial funding for state child welfare
programs.
“The bill says that if the state is going to accept those
federal funds, which they do, we all know they do, then they
cannot punish parents for exercising their rights under the
Constitution, like their parental rights,” Parlato told The
Center Square.
In addition to federal funding consequences, the legislation
includes a private right of action for violations.
Parlato said children in New York were taken away from their
parents if they did not affirm the child’s self-identity.
“The Supreme Court has said for decades and decades, for
generations, that parents have the right to raise their children
in their upbringing as they see fit, and the government should
not interfere,” Parlato said.
Miller’s legislation would provide that foster and adoptive
families cannot be denied placement solely because they affirm a
child’s biological sex. It also would amend the Parental
Kidnapping Prevention Act to prevent states from wrongfully
asserting custody over a child.
“The Yaeli Martinez Child Protection Act defends the
constitutional rights of mothers and fathers and stops
bureaucrats from using taxpayer-funded child-welfare systems to
tear children away from loving families,” Miller said in a
statement.
The campaign for Miller’s November opponent, Jennifer Todd, did
not immediately respond to The Center Square’s request for
comment.
Parlato said raising a child born male as a boy or a child born
female as a girl is not child abuse.
“And what was happening across the country, it's not just in one
state or two states, it really was in several states, that this
was being classified as child abuse."
Parlato said the bill may not gain bipartisan support because it
implicates the gender ideology movement.
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