New President: “Last week was very successful!”

Dear Parental Rights friends,

Last week was a great week for Parental Rights across the nation, and this is just the beginning.

It started off on Giving Tuesday, when, because of your generosity, we raised over $60,000 in just 24 hours. And a few hours later, I took off for my first trip representing parents like you all across the nation as President of ParentalRights.org and the Parental Rights Foundation. I flew to San Diego, to present a model parental rights statute at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) National Summit. We drafted this model statute, basing it on past U.S. Supreme Court decisions protecting parental rights over the past 100 years, and on existing laws in several states that protect this fundamental right of parents— not bureaucrats—to raise their children.

I’m proud to say that when I presented our model statute, there was no dissent. It passed unanimously out of the ALEC Health & Human Services committee and will soon be introduced in state legislatures around the nation. You can download our model statute here. If you are a state legislator, this would be a fantastic bill to introduce. If you are a parent or a voter (or both!), please ask your legislator to introduce this parental rights statute in your state.

Here’s why this model statute is such a big deal: we all want to see parental rights protected. We’ve been working since ParentalRights.org was founded to put parental rights into the black and white of our nation’s Constitution. But parental rights are so important, and parental rights have become such a rallying cry across the nation, that we can’t wait for Congress to act. We have an opportunity now in the states to protect children by empowering parents, and we’re going to seize the moment.

Along with our model state parental rights statute, we have two other model statutes that we are working on at the state level: a model bill to reduce false allegations of child abuse and neglect by making reports confidential instead of anonymous, and a model bill to restore due process protections to our child welfare laws by requiring a due process hearing before a parent or caregiver is placed on a central registry of abuse or neglect.

The exciting thing about our three state model bills is that they have wide-spread support. This is not just a Republican or Democrat issue. Parents across the nation, across the political spectrum, from every racial and ethnic and demographic background, are demanding that their fundamental right as parents be respected by the government.

People are realizing that our nation’s child welfare laws as currently implemented are harming the very children they were intended to protect. We are working with advocates across the political spectrum on this issue who have correctly pointed out that our nation’s child welfare laws are increasing inequity, as they primarily result in minority and low-income parents losing custody of their children. Together, we can take a stand to stop this.

I’m thrilled to be representing you as president of ParentalRights.org and the Parental Rights Foundation. Together, we can make 2022 “The Year of the Parent.”

Very truly yours,

William A. Estrada, Esq.
President
ParentalRights.org
Parental Rights Foundation