Lawyers Warn Parents About NC's Dangerous Child Consent Law

Lawyers and other experts with Children's Health Defense and Stand for Health Freedom have warned leaders of HEALNC that North Carolina has one of the most dangerous minor consent laws in the country.

The majority of North Carolinians (even long time medical freedom advocates) are unaware that children ages 0 - 17 in NC can legally make their own medical decisions about vaccinations and other controversial therapies without their parents’ knowledge or consent. In addition, NC law allows a doctor to override a parent's medical decision if he/she believes a delay in treatment would "endanger the life or seriously worsen the physical condition" making children vulnerable to medical malfeasance. The physician simply has to get a second opinion from a fellow physician.

This law can mean life or death for a child. For example, HEALNC has been made aware of a depressed teen who was referred by school personnel to a mental health professional without his parents' knowledge. Being unaware of their child's struggles and having no indication that he needed to be monitored, the parents left him at home alone. He committed suicide while they were gone.

Other examples of medical malfeasance that are possible with NC's law are:

• A grandparent who believes in vaccines could take a child of any age for vaccination without parental knowledge or consent because the child can "consent." 

• A child can be prescribed medications that have severe side effects without the parents knowing. Often, the parents' insurance is paying for these medications.

• A child can seek a range of social, psychological, and behavioral "gender affirming" therapies without the parent even knowing that the child is struggling. 

• Parents whose child has been diagnosed with cancer might be forced to agree to chemotherapy to maintain custody because the doctor can override the parents' decision to seek alternative therapies.

The medical system has become more and more centralized, enabling them to increase their power and erode parental involvement. 

In recent years, NC hospital systems have started taking advantage of the NC law by denying parents access to their children's (ages 12 and up) medical records and instituting policies that allow a child to override his/her parent's medical decisions. In the fall of 2023, many in the health freedom movement were shocked when Atrium Health began notifying parents that they no longer have access to their 12 -17 year old children's prescription information. According to the existing NC law and HIPAA, Atrium could have used ages 0 and up. However, they chose 12 and up. Why?

NC's minor consent law went into effect in 1977. Yet, it's taken Atrium 47 years to take advantage of the law. That begs the question, why now?

In recent years, lax minor consent laws have been proposed in a number of states and in Washington, DC. 

At the same time, we have witnessed the explosion of the Gates/Bezos/government funded School Based Health Centers that give children easy access to controversial medical treatments while at school without the parents knowing.

There could have been a quick fix to this egregious law. NC Health Coalition (which includes HEALNC) has been shocked to witness the raw power of the medical establishment over our lawmakers. We will report on these political forces in our August newsletter.

If North Carolinians continue to allow the government and medical establishment to take control of our medical decisions for our children, first by the elimination of parental involvement in medical decisions, then by conditioning our children to follow authority blindly, a corporate/government partnership will grow up around them and will deprive us of all free will until our children wake up with no freedom at all.