The Illinois State Legislature is back at it again. Earlier this week, the State Senate passed Senate Bill 3341, a bill suggesting minors can provide effective consent for “contraceptive services or supplies.” The bill passed on party lines and was sent to the Illinois House of Representatives where Democrats hold control 78-40.
The bill carries a significant blow to Illinois families. Children cannot sign off for Advil from a school nurse. So, the suggestion that they can reasonably consent to a hormonal birth control, which carries significantly more risks, is clearly ideologically charged.
The risks of birth control have flooded the news recently, as more women are sharing stories of unknown side effects, which seem to have even higher risks for teens. One Washington Times Instagram post had to limit comments because of the volume of women sharing their negative experiences with birth control. Those risks are not something we can reasonably expect a young child to weigh. That is the job of parents.
No one is more attuned to a child’s needs than a good, loving parent. When parents are cut out of such consequential decisions, the child is left to their own emotions and the all-too-corrupting influences of the world. This is especially true for decisions that can lead to long-term medical dependency.
We’ve seen this on full display as nearly every institution has turned to the sexualization of children. A Concerned Women for America (CWA) study showed that 41% of G-rated and TV-Y7-rated series on Netflix contain LGBTQ+ content. This only scratches the surface. Pop culture, school curriculum, and certainly social media all tell children the same story: your worth and identity are found in your sexual preferences.
So why is this agenda willing to go to such dangerous lengths to get more children to make serious decisions regarding sexuality without parental advice? A study indicates that the likelihood of sexual intimacy increases significantly (43-70%) following the start or ongoing use of hormonal birth control.
Parents know their child best, including the dangers of the world, and can make better-informed decisions about their child’s medical needs. Outside forces, including government, pushing children into sexual activity is not just morally offensive, it is dangerous.
The threat of sextortion targeting minors has drastically increased in recent years, and normalizing sexual relations for children, especially outside the protection of their parents, makes predators’ lives easier.
But the problem that undergirds it all is the age of consent. Alongside law enforcement and parental involvement, consent laws have protected children for centuries with a fundamental understanding: we cannot leave children up to their own decisions as their brains have not fully developed to properly handle the consequences of certain behaviors.
While their brains develop, their emotions and hormones regulate, they learn risk/reward measures, and their worldview crystallizes, we have long recognized that children are not capable of meaningful consent. Children may explore decision-making in their personal style, hobbies, or other low-risk endeavors. But they obviously cannot enter legal contracts, enlist in the military, gamble, purchase alcohol, or even sign a field trip waiver.
This widely recognized legal protection helps shield children from dangers such as molestation. No matter how an adult persuades a child into a sexual act, it is widely understood that the child is not capable of giving legitimate sexual consent.
Bills like this challenge those assumptions. While it does not directly strike any sexual consent protections for children, it does suggest that it is reasonable for a child to make significant decisions, specifically regarding their medical sexual health, without consultation with the people who care about them most: their parents.
Of course, radical progressives have been chipping away at this for years, suggesting children can consent to irreversible sex-rejecting procedures and abortion, outside of their parents’ knowledge. Illinois is chipping off the same block with the passage of SB 3341.
Promoting sexual promiscuity and attacking parental rights go hand-in-hand. But we must fight against it. CWA believes it is a fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children. Policies that acknowledge this reality serve our families, state, and country best.
