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Congress' Proposed SCHIP "Compromise" Chips Away at Parental Rights in Favor of Planned Parenthood

Would require most states to provide contraceptives to anticipated 10 million children with parents none the wiser.

By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Democrat controlled Congress has retreated on the SCHIP bill, saying it will leave the bill for the 111th Congress to take up in March 2009 after it failed to override President Bush's veto and the staunch resistance of House Republicans opposed to the socialist health care scheme for children. Although a political cease-fire now remains in place, the current "compromise" bill so far requires states to pay for family planning contraceptive services to children and drastically expands the number of eligible children, who would then be able to receive contraception without their parents' knowledge or consent.

As revealed in a recent memo by Daniel Moloney, PhD, a senior policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation, two provisions in HR 3963, sec. 506 and 616, the proposed expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), would require most states to provide contraceptives to children, and allow school-based health clinics receiving federal taxpayer dollars to dispense contraceptives to an anticipated 10 million children under this coverage, with their parents none the wiser.

SCHIP works as an expansion of Medicaid in 32 states and the District of Columbia. State officials simply would add to Medicaid programs the children who were previously ineligible under the original Medicaid rules.

Medicaid statutes since 1972 have mandated that all states provide contraceptives and other family planning supplies to all "individuals of child-bearing age (including minors who can be considered to be sexually active) who are eligible under the State plan and who desire such services and supplies." Since federal law prohibits those who provide Medicaid benefits from sharing "confidential" information about the patients, regardless of age, doctors and school nurses would not be allowed to inform parents about requested health services (e.g contraception) or of a minor's sexual behavior unless the child signs a waiver.

The latest SCHIP bill also would allot even more taxpayer dollars for third-party "family planning" contractors such as Planned Parenthood to distribute contraceptives and count them as eligible expenditure.

"Every dollar that the government gives through Medicaid has this parental notification problem. The bill takes out all the protections that have been put in place, so the money will now flow to school based clinics that are free to contract out to Planned Parenthood to give sex education," Moloney told LifeSiteNews.com.

SCHIP will effectively divorce these 10 million children from their parents' oversight in health matters, but also places them at risk from possible sexual predators. Moloney told LifeSiteNews.com that SCHIP would essentially make "whoever a child is romantically attached to that week and the Medicaid bureaucrat" the primary influences in a child's health care.

"They think that with the proper coaching and proper contraception they will be able to have a proper sex life beginning at puberty," said Moloney. "This has been the case since Medicaid was 'reformed' in 1972. The idea of this was to make sure that kids could go get contraception and that in fact Planned Parenthood be contracted by the federal government to enroll kids in programs that would allow them to receive contraception without their parents knowledge."

If SCHIP does expand into the middle-class, a number of children may end up the victims of this health care scheme rather than its beneficiaries. Because the proposed law would thrust parents out of the picture, children as young as 11 would be able to be manipulated into sexual relationships with sexual predators or over-age "boyfriends," without a peep from school clinics contraceptive providers like Planned Parenthood.

"What's happening is that we know from a lot of statistics that for kids you have a 67% chance that those who are sexually active qualify as statutory rape," said Moloney.

"The trick is that the groups that have a bad track record with reporting statutory rape, sex abuse, and child abuse - this is one thing I should point out: these groups seem to have a bad track record with this - they are going to get all the same federal money they did before, and they are going to be allowed to enroll more kids in their programs and have greater access to them through their schools."

Daniel Moloney's insightful memo "SCHIP Expansion: More Birth Control for Minors, Less Involvement by Parents" can be found here: http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm1715.cfm

Related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:

Anti-life "HillaryCare" Socialized Med Scheme Back as House Passes CHAMP Bill; Senate Follows Suit Today
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/aug/07080208.html

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