SEATTLE — A court commissioner in Washington state refused on Tuesday to issue an emergency order temporarily blocking a new parental rights law that has been called a “forced outing” measure by critics. The law will now go into effect this week.
King County Superior Court Commissioner Mark Hillman said that the groups challenging the law—including civil liberties groups, the school district, youth services organizations, and others—did not show that it would cause grave harm right away, which is needed to stop it until a trial court judge can decide what to do. On June 21, there will be a meeting in front of the judge.
Initiative 2081 is the name of the law that reinforces and sometimes adds to the rights that parents already have under state and federal law. As long as it’s not an emergency, it requires schools to let parents know ahead of time about any medical services they plan to offer their child and any treatment that will require follow-up care outside of school hours. For more situations, parents can choose not to send their child to sex education. Parents can also look at their child’s medical and therapy records.
People who are against the move say it could hurt students who go to school clinics to get birth control, information on where to get reproductive services, counseling about their gender identity or sexual orientation, or help or treatment for sexual assault or domestic violence. People who know the children say that many of the time, the kids don’t want their parents to know.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and other groups that are against the bill say it goes against the state Constitution, which says that new laws can’t change or get rid of old laws without saying so.
Like, state law protects the privacy of medical records for teens and young adults who can get care, even abortions, without their parents’ permission. The claimants said that the law would let parents know before their child gets care and let them look at their child’s school medical records. However, the law does not say that it changes the current privacy law.
Brian Heywood, a conservative megadonor who backed the effort, said that the measure wasn’t meant to give parents the power to stop their child from getting medical or counseling care. That it says they have a right to know was all he said.
It was overwhelmingly approved by the Democratic-led Legislature in March. Progressive lawmakers wanted to keep it off the vote in the fall and thought that the courts would probably stop it.
During the meeting, Hillman said that he understood the groups’ concerns about the measure, but that the harms they said it would cause were just guesses.
A lawyer for the state named William McGinty said that the rule is legal and that the plaintiffs had not shown that they were entitled to a temporary restraining order.
