What You Need to Know:

The following summary are bills we’ve highlighted that are specific to our focus, expertise, and interests, or made it to our watch list. To view the actual bill language or see who is sponsoring it, the bill title is linked for your convenience.  Green means we support the bill, red means we oppose it, and those with no official stance are simply in blue.

The bills are listed in numerical order. 

Bill statuses will either be listed as passed, signed, defeated, or expired. A bill that was defeated was voted down during session. A bill that expired was not voted down necessarily, but is now dead because the session is over. 

 

Parental Rights and the Family

Bill Status: EXPIRED

This bill only affects state employees. It extends the existing unpaid parental leave benefits of most state employees to include school district employees. 

Bill Status: PASSED

The background checks currently required to work in the Division of Health and Social Services would extend also to their prospective employees, contractors, and volunteers as well. This is specifically as it relates to those who have direct access to children under 18 in any way. 

Bill Status: EXPIRED

SB 242 allows children in foster care to receive or be discharged from psychiatric treatment without needing parental consent.

Bill Status: PASSED

At first glance, this policy seems reasonable and certainly the intent behind it. However, it seems to lack a bit of clarity in implementation. 

It makes conduct done to gain a child’s trust, for the intent of having inappropriate sexual contact illegal. Yes, that absolutely should be the case. Some of the acts mentioned are normal acts that may be done by a family member or sitter in some way, such as tickling or even bathing a child. 

It would seem that in order to meet the threshold of “grooming,” the person would have to have the act coupled with the negative intent. In practice, this will need to be handled delicately because a young child may mention to a teacher that their parent tickled them or helped them in the bath. All such acts are normal parental behavior, but if the teacher now understands all such behavior to be included as potential grooming, they may red flag a parent unnecessarily and put children in the system that never should have been.

As far-fetched of a possibility as this may seem, we have seen many far-fetched situations become realities when it came to having parental rights taken away.

Bill Status: EXPIRED

This bill recognizes that parents have the fundamental right to the care, custody, and control of their child, and adds this recognition to the Delaware Constitution. 

WE NEED THIS. 

Parents are being increasingly undermined by government agencies. We’re seeing this more and more in the medical and educational systems.

It is fact that the barrier to expanding government control is PARENTS. If an agent of the government determines that you as a parent are not in alignment with their prevailing ideology, they feel justified in undermining your rights.

Bill Status: STRICKEN

Yes, you read that right. HB 400 would allow dependents on an insurance policy to receive “sensitive health care services” without the policy holder being alerted.

Last year, a similar bill was introduced on the last day of session; the main difference was that it only applied to dependents between ages 18-26.

HB 400 clearly extends this practice to minor dependents.

Wouldn’t you want to be notified if your child began taking experimental drugs that disrupt the natural puberty process, using your insurance coverage?

It’s important to realize that this is just one of many polices, proposed and passed, that would give minors more easy access to these “sensitive services” and usurp parents in doing so. 

Bill Status: EXPIRED

HB 414 is a direct attack on parents who refuse to take their children down the dangerous road of trying to transition their gender, making them guilty of child abuse when it is just the opposite.

Just yesterday the FDA finally slapped a warning on puberty blockers

Thank God this bill did not pass, or a number of parents could be facing having their children removed from their custody for standing on the truth about human sexuality.

Bill Status: PASSED

The Division of Family Services often partners with law enforcement to enforce orders. This is used in the rare occurrence that the parent does not comply with their child being removed from custody. 

There are extreme and unfortunate cases where children do need to be removed from the custody of their parents because of abuse. This bill in the context of HB 414 just mentioned, however, has drastic implications for Christian parents.

HB 414 may not have passed, but this one did. It gives law enforcement the right to enforce an order of custody removal by coming onto private property to take the child(ren). Though it may be necessary for those extreme cases, remain watchful for any other policies that etch away at parental rights that will only make this policy that much more dangerous.

Bill Status: PASSED

This prohibits a minor from voluntarily acknowledging their paternity of a child. Those who supported this bill argued that a minor is not mature enough to make such a big decision. 

Hmm, does that argument sound familiar? 🤔

The irony is, supporters of this bill were very much in support of allowing minors to choose gender transition services and abortions without parental notification (HB 400). Are minors mature enough to make those life-altering decisions?

Minors need protection from decisions, not consequences.

Bill Status: EXPIRED

The most dangerous bill from this session, HB 199, was filed but never actually made it to the committee. But HB 460 is equally dangerous but just goes about it differently. 

HB 460 would enshrine the “right to privacy” in Delaware’s Constitution. Remember that rights protected in the Constitution are given the highest weight of the law.

This so-called right to privacy will clash with religious liberty, parental rights, the right to and dignity of human life, and many others.

The “right to privacy” is used to support …

  • the “right” to abortion, based on the premise used in Roe v. Wade.
  • the “right” to assisted suicide.
  • a direct invitation and open door for teachers to potentially teach comprehensive sex education (based on the cases mentioned in HB 460’s synopsis).
  • a child’s right to “privacy” — meaning, parents can be excluded from their child’s medical information or school information. Remember our discussion about HB 400?
  • et cetera …

The most dangerous implications of HB 460 are that it will enshrine abortion in Delaware constitution, and severely restrict parental rights when they conflict with their child’s “privacy.”

Bill Status: EXPIRED

If passed, this law would have required the guilty party in a vehicular homicide to pay restitution to the survivors’ child(ren). 

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