By Milt Harris —— Bio and Archives November 6, 2023
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Parental rights are a very hot news topic in today’s day and age. Most of the stories involve schools wanting to keep parents in the dark about their children’s sexuality. Something that shouldn’t even be in question if science, biology and common sense are allowed to enter the conversation. In the case of the schools, you must ask yourself why are the schools trying to shut the parents out?
The only logical reason is that they are hiding the fact that it is they themselves that are involved in any confusion the child may be experiencing. In simple terms, they are grooming the child and parental involvement will interfere with that agenda.
Now, In New Jersey it has been exposed that the state has been playing hide and seek with the blood of newborn babies. Once again, keeping the parents in the dark.
A group of these parents have teamed up with the Institute of Justice (IJ) and have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s practice of keeping the samples of the blood of newborns for 23 years. The state is doing this without the parent’s knowledge or consent. The issue is that after some required initial testing, the state can use the blood sample in any manner that it wants.
New Jersey is not unique in requiting a blood draw on newborns. All states have a similar requirement. The blood is tested for diseases like cystic fibrosis, immune system problems and hormonal deficiencies. However, after the initial testing is complete, the New Jersey’s Department of Health keeps the leftover blood for 23 years.
The only way parents could learn about the state doing this is by proactively looking it up on one of the third-party websites listed on the bottom of the card they’re given after the blood draw. Here’s the problem, once the state has the blood, it can use it however it wishes, including selling it to third parties, giving it to police without a warrant, or even selling it to the Pentagon to create a registry, which previously happened in Texas.
Robert Frommer, who is a senior IJ lawyer, stated it this way:
Christie Hebert, another lawyer with IJ, explained why New Jersey's practice is problematic:
Similar abuses and subsequent lawsuits have also been brought against Texas, Minnesota and Michigan. In those cases, settlements have ordered the destruction of blood samples held by the states. The 2009 lawsuit in Texas resulted in the state destroying 5.3 million blood samples, and now, all blood samples obtained after 2012 must be destroyed after two years. A 2014 settlement in the Minnesota lawsuit resulted in 1.1 million blood samples being destroyed. In 2022, Michigan agreed to destroy 3 million blood spots, but that lawsuit has not yet reached completion.
In the New Jersey Case, the plaintiffs are Erica and Jeremiah Jedynak, and Rev. Hannah Lovaglio, a Cranbury mother of two.
Every time a story like this surfaces, I wonder what else is taking place that we as citizens are not aware of. One thing is for certain, nothing is as simple as it seems. This wasn’t an oversight; this blood was being kept for a reason. What that reason is needs to be explored and answered, not just by the few states where it has been discovered, but by all 50 states.