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According to a new USA Today feature column, parents may want to consider contraceptives and birth control pills for their teens’ back-to-school supplies.
The column, under the headline “Not your average back-to-school supply list,” suggested that high school and college students likely already have their pens, calculators, and binders – but may need much more.
The Left is obsessed with creating new cultural norms. This is one example.
Be informed, not misled.
USA Today begins with this:
Pens, binders, graphing calculator: Check, check, check.
What's less likely to appear on school supply lists, however, are health-related items for teens and young adults, whether they're heading to high school or college.
But the health landscape has changed drastically over the past three years, and it has become more difficult to know how to prepare. However, experts say, there's more information and resources parents can use than ever before.
Here's what to know about the tools that are available, where and how to access them, and how to use them.
Michael Faust, writing for Christian Headlines, noted, "Parents also can consider purchasing condoms, spermicide, contraceptive sponges and emergency contraceptives for their teens, the column said."
On fentanyl test strips, the column paraphrased a doctor who said it’s “important to know where to access these tools and how to use them to avoid preventable deaths.”
Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the host of "The Briefing" podcast, said the column crossed a line.
“Parents are no longer the moral authorities who are understood to have the responsibility to say, ‘This is how you should live. If you're going to college, by the way, if I'm going to pay your college bills, this is how I fully expect you to live.’ What you're seeing here is the redefinition of parenting where parents are basically the enablers of their own adolescent and post-adolescent offspring in whatever behavior or identity or whatever activities the young person may choose, and that includes sex and drugs, just understand that."
“It doesn't say that parents are to celebrate sex and drugs and misbehavior by their kids, but it does say they are to facilitate it,” Mohler added. “That is a major redefinition of parenting. I can just tell you that my parents wouldn't have recognized this conception of parenting. Their parents wouldn't have recognized it either, and they certainly wouldn't have expected a newspaper like USA Today to put this on the front page. The fact that it is on the front page tells us not just a lot about USA Today. It tells us a lot about what USA Today thinks about the USA today. Christians' understanding that we are to be in the world but not of it, understand we face a whole new challenge as this front-page article in USA Today makes abundantly clear.”
The war on parents. And parenting.
Public education, the media, entertainment, LGBTQ activists, medical, and other influencing groups have stepped out from the shadows of the culture declaring our children are no longer ours to raise. They now belong to the state and even private institutions like medicine and healthcare.
A new report is sounding the alarm on the growing number of schools embracing transgender ideology and keeping parents in the dark. According to Parents Defending Education, at least 1,040 U.S. school districts have adopted policies instructing or encouraging faculty and staff to keep students’ gender identities a secret from parents. Those districts include over 18,000 schools responsible for nearly 11 million students. The vast majority of those school districts (593) are in California.
Children are assaulted in public libraries by perverted old men pretending to be women presenting a so-called "Drag Queen" performance to slick, greedy medical doctors who are collectively harvesting about $2 billion per year performing sex change surgeries on children who have been secretly deceived and misled by influencers in the culture.
The law firm Alliance Defending Freedom is playing a significant role in representing parents whose children have been "stolen" by the Leftist activist's deception in our institutions.
ADF says, "Parents take care of us before we can take care of ourselves. They bring us into the world. They teach us to walk, to talk, to love. They prepare us to enter society and live as upstanding citizens."
Of all the people who share in shaping a child’s moral character and the adults they become—from teachers and coaches to spiritual mentors, extended family, and others—parents have far and away the deepest and most enduring influence. The men and women we become often reflect the men and women our parents are.
Everyone should care about how children are raised. They become our nation’s leaders, after all. Everyone should also be able to agree that, in nearly every case, parents are best positioned to protect their children’s health and welfare.
And they say:
Although the law recognizes the rights of parents, parental rights are under increasing attack from public school indoctrination and state governments. Sometimes, tragically, parents fail to provide their children’s most basic needs. When that happens, the government plays an important role. But the government should never replace parents.
Washington State is an example of how the attack on parental rights creeps forward.
Under Senate Bill 5599, children can stay at licensed youth shelters without their parent's knowledge for an indefinite amount of time while seeking medical treatments like gender-transitioning services and medications―including puberty “blockers” that can lead to permanent sterilization.
19th District State Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, issued the following statement regarding the bill's passage:
“Since the vote on SB 5599, I've been contacted by thousands of concerned Washingtonians about this attack on parents' rights and families. Sponsors and supporters of this bill have overstepped the constitution and case law in promoting this policy, which would allow state bureaucrats to hide minor children from custodial parents and legal guardians. This bill is wrong—legally, ethically, and morally.
“Among its many flaws, the bill assumes families that don't 'affirm' a child's short-term desires are being abusive. Wrong! Sometimes love requires parents to not affirm their child's whims. Loving parents guide their children as they grow. Sometimes that means saying 'no.'"
Walsh says, “This is not the first policy approved this session that turns the power and machinery of state government against families. Lawmakers promoting these changes put wedges between children and their parents, grandparents, and the people who love them."
“During floor debate, we heard the tired old cliche that 'it takes a village to raise a child.' That's false. That notion has resulted in exploding crime rates, homelessness, and rising teen suicide rates in Washington. Enough. Parents are the primary stakeholders in their children's upbringing—not the government.”
God bless him and all the others who are standing up for the children and the parents who love them.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.