Texas lawmakers have expanded protections for parental rights in recent years, but advocates warn that parents still lack a clear, centralized way to challenge government actions they believe infringe on decisions regarding their child’s education, medical care, and moral upbringing.
Senate Bill 12, passed and enacted last year, strengthened parental-consent requirements, especially in government schools. The law states that parents have the right to direct their child’s moral and religious upbringing, make decisions regarding their child’s education, and consent to any medical care provided, including psychiatric care.
While supporters have praised the law as an expansion of parental rights, critics say questions remain over interpretation, what constitutes interference, and how parents can seek relief when they believe the law has been violated.
According to new research from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, legal precedent has come to recognize family members “as individuals with competing interests under the same household,” potentially undermining parents’ authority over their children.
The broader question of parental authority has also reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, Maryland parents challenged a school district’s decision to add LGBTQ books to its curriculum without offering any religious exemptions for parents to opt out. The Court concluded that this violated parents’ free exercise of religion.
In California, a school policy kept secret from parents any student “gender transitioning,” which was challenged by parents and teachers in Mirabelli v. Bonta. For one of the families involved it was “not until their daughter attempted suicide did the Poes learn from a physician that their daughter suffered from gender dysphoria.”
TPPF’s Noah Torres suggests that in order to enforce Texas’ parental rights statutes, lawmakers should create an Office of Parental Rights in the Office of the Attorney General.
It would be modeled similar to Florida’s Office of Parental Rights, which accepts complaints from parents involving issues such as unauthorized healthcare, interference with educational choices, and objectionable library material.
The new office could also oversee child welfare disputes.
CPS has previously taken children away from parents wrongly, as in the case of the Bright family. In 2019, the Bright family’s two children were removed under false pretenses, and the daughter was even hurt twice in foster care according to their lawyer, Dennis Slate.
While child welfare agencies have the authority to investigate allegations of abuse or neglect and to seek court intervention when they believe a child faces an immediate risk, Torres noted that these agencies often interact directly with parental rights. He suggested it could be beneficial for the proposed parental rights office to investigate complaints against these state agencies and advise parents of their rights.
The question for Texas lawmakers next session is not whether parents have rights—the Legislature has expanded several of them—but how those rights are defined, enforced, and balanced against schools’ educational responsibilities and the state’s duty to protect children from abuse or neglect.
