Group Urges States To Enact Parental Rights

A conservative group is urging states to amend their constitutions to stop government from meddling in parents’ efforts to raise, discipline and educate their children.

The group, Of The People, has taken its proposed “parental rights amendment” to statehouses across the country. It is being sponsored by lawmakers in 29 states, but it has not passed in any.

“We need to keep public policy on the side of parents and on the side of families,” Betsy DeVos, national co-chairman of the parental rights group, said Friday.

“The parental rights amendment boils down to the question: Who decides what is in the best interest of children? The parents, or the government?” said DeVos, a mother of four who is a Grand Rapids, Mich., businesswoman and Republican national committeewoman for Michigan.

The Arlington, Va.-based group formed in late 1992 to get states to change their constitutions with an amendment that states: “The right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children shall not be infringed.”

The movement was buoyed last month when Virginia Gov. George Allen, a Republican, backed the group’s proposal in a televised address. But the Virginia Senate voted Thursday to shelve it.

The group is outraged by cases where students have been counseled or given birth control devices without their parents’ knowledge.