Parents and children, and ultimately our society, will be harmed by passage of Article 22 the language that is intended to amend the Vermont Constitution.
However, parents in our state must be alerted to look at the even wider ramifications, such as the damage Proposal 5 will force on our familial relationships, our laws, our schools, and our rights as citizens. This broadly worded proposal to amend our constitution uses the phrase “personal reproductive autonomy.” The phrase is increasingly becoming a catch-all for controlling free speech or promoting identity ideology, legalizing “sex work”, and mandating race relations theories, as well as establishing school policies allowing secrets that can be kept from parents about their children’s emotional, social, and physical health.
Parents, who best know their children, who most love their children, and who are most attentive to the best interests of their children, will face fighting legalized secrets about their children held by schools or clinics on topics such as pregnancy/STD testing, chemical and surgical abortions, hormone treatments, and social identities/pronouns used with their children of ALL ages. Proposal 5 is a wedge between parent and child that creates risks for a life-time. Most urgently, Proposal 5 and those who support it are, willingly or unwittingly, supporting harm to parental legal rights, parent-child relationships, and child safety. The generational harm will be devastating to a healthy Vermont. If “children are our future,” for the sake of all our futures, please stop passage of Proposal 5 and the dreadful outcomes for Vermont’s constitution and the families it should protect.