Families Matter, Bill Would Prove It Pro/ Rights Bill Kids Need Parents, Parents Need Rights.

Sheila Hurst, a mother of two, is older and much wiser today - after surviving two abortions and a miscarriage as an unruly teen-ager.

Now, she wishes Washington state law hadn’t done so well “protecting” her from a loving family during her rebellious years. She ran away from home in Tacoma because she didn’t want to observe family restrictions. And the courts backed her.

Ultimately, the Washington Supreme Court blocked Sheila’s parents from getting their daughter back, incredibly ruling in 1980 that a child could be removed from her family if she objected to her family’s rules.

Now, Sheila supports parents-rights legislation. She told Focus on the Family Citizen magazine last September: “If (my daughter) ever ended up pregnant, I most definitely would want to have my say.”

Most parents would, too.

The Of the People organization contends 74 percent of Americans support a parents-rights amendment it wants introduced to state constitutions: “The right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children shall not be infringed.”

Parents-rights bills are surfacing from Olympia to Washington, D.C. - with a goal of strengthening the family. Parents should have the right to discipline their children without fear and guide their education, religious study and health care.

Critics complain that social conservatives are trying to use government to intrude on children’s rights. But they don’t seem to mind that tax-supported public schools are used at times to distribute condoms, promote homosexuality and attack this country’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

Social conservatives may be reaching too far when they seek to require that creationism be taught alongside evolution, when they push for school prayer, and when they try to outlaw sex-education courses. But they speak for many when they insist parents have a right to intervene when a daughter is considering a major surgery like abortion or a child has asked to be tested for a sexually transmitted disease.

Sheila Hurst learned the hard way that government doesn’t know best. Said she to Citizen: “A lot of (my troubles) could have been prevented if I was made to stay home and listen to my parents - and get the upbringing that I rightly deserved.”

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: Popular rhetoric won’t heal families

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