Calls Needed: ND Parental Rights Bill Moves to House

Senate Bill 2260, introduced by Senators Paulson, Lemm, and Wobbema, cleared the Senate on February 10 by a vote of 40 to 6.  This bill guarantees the “fundamental right of a parent to direct the upbringing, education, health care and mental health of the parent’s child” and prohibits any government entity from interfering with these rights except when “required by a compelling governmental interest of the highest order as applied to the parent and the child [that] is the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling governmental interest.”

This is a terrific bill that will require that parental rights be treated as the fundamental constitutional rights that they are, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in a consistent string of cases dating back 100 years to Meyer v. Nebraska (1923).

When SB2260 passed the Senate, it was transferred to the House and assigned to the Human Services Committee.

Please take a moment today to contact your member of the North Dakota House of Representatives and ask them to support SB2260. If they are on the Human Services Committee, ask them to call for a hearing and to vote the bill out of committee. If not, ask them to vote for the bill when it comes to the House floor.

Your message, which should be in your own words, can be as simple as this:

I am calling to ask my representative to support SB2260 Relating to Parental Rights. The vital role of a parent in the life of a child must be protected. It’s time for North Dakota law to catch up with a hundred years of U.S. Supreme Court precedent and protect these rights with the respect they deserve. (If my representative is on the Human Services Committee, I ask him or her to call for a hearing on SB2260 and to vote it out of committee.)

If you email your lawmaker, you might include this link to our video explaining why this legislation is so important: youtube.com/watch?v=1cqRWQa6e28

Thank you for standing with us to protect children by empowering parents through common sense legislation like SB2260 in the North Dakota House.