Parenting Skills and Health Care?

Does government intervention into the home of expecting parents have anything to do with the health care debate? Apparently so. This article (http://townhall.com/columnists/ChuckNorris/2009/08/11/dirty_secret_no_1_in_obamacare or go to http://townhall.com and go to the story entitled "Dirty Secret No. 1 in Obamacare") discusses a section of the House Bill currently being offered by House Democrats. On page 838, Sections 440 and 1904, the proposed legislation discusses sending government agents into private homes to educate citizens on how to be parents. The legislation even goes so far as to "identify" certain sectors of society that it feels needs more help than others, "especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families."

Although some of the language in the article exposing this is a bit dramatic, the point is still valid. We have a constitutional right to rear our children as we see fit. The government has never had the ability to come into the home and tell parents what to teach their children, how to raise them, and which theories of child development they think work best. Supreme Court decisions have upheld this right of parents, and restriction on government action, for over a hundred years. For a listing of just some of the cases relevant to this, go here: http://www.childrensjustice.org/cases1.htm.

This provision within the "reform" bill is yet another example of the politicians supporting it saying one thing but failing to understand the implications of the text itself. As I discussed in a previous post (The "Right" to Healthcare v. The "Right" to Privacy), this bill raises serious constitutional questions and this section is another example of the government eroding natural law and infringing upon the fundamental liberty interests of the people who grant that same government its power.