MI- S.B. 419: Boom or Bust for Families?

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I apologize for taking so long to get to this... A week or two ago someone posted about this new law in Michigan that is being advanced as a pro-family act and I promised to dissect- and to do that I also had to upload a previous bill it referenced. Then I got sidetracked and then, and then... Hell- I'm old, it takes me forever to do everything these days... So better late than never, I guess!

The most important part of the Bill is Chapter XII A... I'll go into a little detail on a few sections and subsections that seem to apply or are problematic. Section 1 (c) Taked authority of juveniles that may have committed a crime (remember, running away is a crime) away from DHS (Dept. of Human Serv.) and puts it in the hands of the county juvenile authority without mention of the family. This is important I believe because Section 2 gives the state authority to force families into state sponsored counselling . In short, if a child runs away, instead of CPS stepping in, juvenile authorities can force the family into counselling instead. Section 4 deals with chronic truancy and the way it's written (along with the next subsection I'll post) could prove problematic for homeschoolers... For some reason this won't copy and paste, so I'll quote the important part and post the entire bill and the previous law it refers to at the end: "... "learning program" means an organized educational program that is appropriate for given age, intelligence, ability and psychological limitations of a juvenile..." and goes on to list a fairly regular curriculum.

Similarly, the next subsection (b)(1) (A) goes on to define "Education" as "learning based on an ORGANIZED [emphasis added] educational program"... and then goes on to list the limitations and list a curricula as "reading, spelling, mathematics, science, history, civics, writing and English grammar." (sounds like grounds to condemn the public school system!) The wording "organized educational program" is really bothersome as it could adversely affect homeschoolers.

The next subsection (b)(10(C) deals with Neglect and refers to the previous law MCL-ACT-250 of 1982- 722.602 which they use to define "neglect."
"(d) “Neglect” means harm to a child's health or welfare by a person responsible for the child's health or
welfare which occurs through negligent treatment, including the failure to provide adequate food, clothing,
shelter, or medical care" It's written so ambiguously that it's wide open to subjective interpretations... so much so that a state "Neglect Board" was established for that purpose (the link at the end will have it- 722.603) The new law then goes on to expand the definition of neglect to include placing the child in either "physical or psychological danger," without defining what the latter amy mean. "Physical danger" is fairly straightforward... However, "psychological" could mean any number of things- and here again I refer you to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which is inevitably cited. If your child wants gender transformation surgery and you refuse- it may constitute "psychological danger." In fact I believe I did a post about an Ohio couple who had their child removed for that very reason.

Without rewriting the entire text, there is another subsection dealing with removal because of "association with criminals, dissolute (I had to look that one up), or disorderly persons." More ambiguous terminology. In the previous post about this law, if memory serves, there was a reference to "human services" (CPS) being strikken from the text. However, upon closer examination- it also says "this subsection is invalid after May 1, 2018." There is another section that deals with the state collecting "Biometric Data" without any mention of parental consent. All in all, if this bill is signed into law, and I still lived in Michigan... I wouldn't be sleeping any better at night.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oYUhlytvqKwQ24xvsQO3S2TdRG0NoOrA/view
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/mcl/pdf/mcl-Act-250-of-1982.pdf