With less than three weeks left in this legislative session in Albany, sixteen New York Democrat lawmakers are working hard to take away the right of a parent to know their child’s full medical history.
Assembly bill A276b seeks to allow minors with no defined minimum age to consent to any vaccine or drug related to STD prevention without parental knowledge or consent. This includes the controversial HPV vaccine, Gardasil as well as the Monkeypox vaccine. Neither of these are required for a child to attend any public school in New York State.
On May 16th, 2023, Assembly bill A276b garnered the support of sixteen Democrat lawmakers and passed out of the Health Committee. It may be headed to the floor of the Assembly to become law if we don’t stop it! With no public comment period or debate scheduled – and this being a non-election year – parents must call their lawmakers to voice their opposition to this bill. TeachersforChoice.org features instructions on how to reach out to your elected officials on this issue.
While this bill has been around for nearly fourteen years carried by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, until last week it has never been able to pass a committee vote. Footage of the Assembly Health Committee vote has gone viral on Twitter showing the actual vote in the Health Committee as well as some of the aftermath of the vote.
Many long-time New York medical freedom activists were most shocked by the vote of Brooklyn Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte, who in 2019, voted against the repeal of the religious exemption to vaccination in the Health Committee and on the floor of the Assembly. At that time, she recounted how she was vaccinated for measles as a child yet got infected with the illness twice after that. Bichotte had also spoken out publicly in support of NYC workers who did not want to get the covid shot to keep their jobs, emphasizing that personal health decisions should be for individuals to decide “what is right for them and what is right for their families.”
This YES vote from Bichotte to prevent parents from having a say in medical decisions about their children flies in the face of the Assemblywoman’s previous stance.
In Albany to witness the vote was Moe Oliver, a Black New York City father of two, who attended the vote last week, expressing dismay that the Black women in the Health Committee voted to strip away parental rights. Moe noted that “something is wrong in the world” when elected officials discard parental rights so easily.
A tweet on Friday made the rounds on Twitter with pictures of all sixteen Democrat lawmakers who voted to strip parents of their rights to know what is injected into their children. All eight Republicans, along with two Democrats, voted against A276b.
While it may be disheartening to see that lawmakers are trying to strip parental rights away from us, there is something we can do, today. Call the heads of the Senate and Assembly in Albany right now. Call Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins at 518-455-2585 and Carl Heastie at 518-455-3791. Tell them where you live, and that you oppose bill A276b because medical decisions should be made by parents, instead of behind our backs.
(Michael Kane is the Founder of TeachersforChoice.org He was a NYC special education teacher for 14 years but was fired for refusing to submit to the Covid vaccine mandate. He is currently a plaintiff in the Kane v. de Blasio suing NYC for losing his job in 2021. He is also the Grassroots Organizer for Children’s Health Defense.)
