Albany is lying about the official description of A6761/S8352, “The Worst Children’s Health Bill Ever,” on the State Senate and Assembly websites. The Assembly description says the bill, “allows homeless youth to give effective consent to certain medical, dental, health, and hospital services, provides for insurance coverage of such health care services consented to by such youth.“ The Senate website says S8352, “Allows certain minors to consent to certain medical, dental, health, and hospital services.” What the bill really does is allows ANY  medical procedure to be done to ANY and ALL minors in New York without parental knowledge or consent. This fact was confirmed yesterday by Justin Westbrook-Lowery, Chief of Staff for A6761 sponsor Assemblymember Karines Reyes.  A6761/S8352 completely eradicates parental control over what happens medically to our children.

Right now, there are close to 10,000 bills in Albany. Frequently, the only thing legislators know about a bill is what is included in the one sentence official description. They often vote based on this single sentence. We are getting feedback from legislators and staffers showing that they believe A6761/S8352 only affects homeless children and not every minor in the state. 

We must make sure they understand what this bill really does. We need to set the record straight! And get the Assembly and State Senate to publish an accurate description of the bill.

 

TAKE ACTION

Please use the panel to the right to send a message to your Assemblymember and State Senator telling them the truth about A6761/S8352.

Please call your Assemblymember and State Senator and politely let them know that despite what the official description says, this bill applies to EVERY child in New York. 

Look them up here:

https://nyassembly.gov/mem/search/

https://www.nysenate.gov/find-my-senator

 

Call the bill sponsors and politely ask what they intend to do to stop this deception of the people of New York about A6761/S8352:

 

Senator Rachel May, (518) 455-2838, (315) 478-8745 

Karines Reyes, Sponsor, (718) 931-2620, (518) 455-5102

 

Call the bosses of the legislature and politely ask what they intend to do to stop this deception of the people of New York about A6761/S8352:

 

Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Senate Majority Leader

Legislative Office Building, Room 907

Albany, NY 12247

Phone: (518) 455-2585

Fax: (518) 426-6811

scousins@nysenate.gov

Twitter/X: @AndreaSCousins

https://www.facebook.com/andrea.stewartcousins

 

Carl Heastie, Speaker of the Assembly

LOB 932, Albany, NY 12248

(518) 455-3791, (718) 654-6539

speaker@nyassembly.gov

Twitter/X: @carlheastie

https://www.facebook.com/carl.heastie

 

Asm. Reyes acknowledges the bill covers all children in the Memo she wrote for the bill saying it would allow “A minor who comprehends the need for, the nature of, and the reasonably foreseeable risks involved in a health services, as well as alternatives, may consent to the service on their own.”  No age limit, no limit to "homeless" minors, this includes all minors in the State.

Similarly, the New York Civil Liberties Union in a statement supporting A6761/S8352, wrote “A.6761 (Reyes) would fill the gaps in New York law by allowing decisionally-capable young people to consent to their own health care. The NYCLU strongly supports A.6761 and urges its immediate passage.” 

Legislators need to consider these issues:

• How can the legislators agree that completely removing parental involvement in a child’s healthcare can possibly be a good thing? 
• There is NO minimum age.  
• This bill is based on the presumption that parents are not to be trusted with their children’s healthcare and that the child knows better.
• A6761/S8352 would violate federal law. The infamous law passed in 1986, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which removed legal liability from vaccine manufacturers and people who administer vaccines, also requires that a healthcare professional provide a copy of the current vaccine information sheet to an adult patient or to a child’s parent/legal representative before vaccinating a child. 42 U.S.C. §300aa-26. Last year, a federal court voided a Washington DC law that allowed children 11 years and older to get vaccines without parental consent. See the judge’s decision here. Federal law requires inclusion of parents in vaccination decisions for minors. 
• A6761/S8352  protects pedophiles by gutting mandated reporter laws. Paulin’s bill protects pedophiles by subverting New York’s  “Mandated Reporter” law that requires licensed professionals to report suspected sexual abuse of children to law enforcement. What rational person would not suspect something was very wrong if a nine-year old requested an injection that purports to prevent a sexually transmitted disease and the child did not want his or her parents to know about it? What should a mandated reporter do if an 11-year-old requests a drug to prevent HIV? Under New York law sex with children of that age is always a felony.
• The decision of whether a child “comprehends the need for, the nature of and the reasonably foreseeable risks and benefits” of a medical procedure is left solely to the discretion of people who could have direct financial or professional interest in performing the procedure.
• What happens if there are side effects or other adverse reactions, and the parent has no idea what has been done to their children? Parents will still be legally responsible for the care of the child, but they and medical professionals will not have the information necessary to provide potentially life-saving care.
• Do children know enough about their own personal and familial medical history to make life-altering medical decisions?
• Nothing in the bill prevents children from “consenting” to participating in medical experiments.
• New York, like all states, already has a process for minors who no longer want to be under their parents’ direction. Any minor can apply for emancipation from their parents. This bill in effect partially emancipates all children without due process.
• There are no protections for developmentally disabled minors, especially those who are not visibly disabled.
• New York has a long and sordid history of targeting children in institutions and foster care for medical experiments. Nothing in A6761/S8532 prevents minors from being recruited for experimental procedures.

 

The minimum age for everything is being raised, but lowered for medical procedures and drugs

For more than a decade, New York legislators have been steadily raising the minimum age for minors to do everything from using tanning salons to buying tobacco to getting married.  Yet in the world view expressed in A6761, a 12-year-old is not mature enough to go to a tanning salon but he or she is old enough to decide to remove healthy organs. 

These are just some of the ways New York has raised minimum ages for minors:

2012, Age for using a tanning salon raised to 16.

2012, Minimum age for piercings and tattoos without parental consent set at 18

2016,  Age for tanning raised to 18

2017, Age of marriage raised from 14 to 17 with parental and judicial consent

2019, Minimum age a person can be prosecuted as an adult raised to 18

2019, Minimum age to buy tobacco and e-cigarettes raised from 18 to 21

2020, Legal age of marriage raised to 18

2021, Age to buy a semi-automatic rifle raised from 18 to 21

2022, Age to buy nitrous oxide cylinders raised to 21

2023, Juvenile delinquency prosecution of any child under 12 banned

2024, Minimum age to drive an All-Terrrain Vehicle (ATV) raised from 10 to 14.

Please share this message with friends and family and please post to social media.

If you support the work of the Autism Action Network, please make it possible to stay in the fight by DONATING HERE.