Child Protection Emergency

Guest Editorial

By Dr. James Kelly, DO

Ballot Question # 1 for Maryland voters in the upcoming November general election will terminate, if passed, parental rights. Drafters of this Constitutional Amendment hid this fact by calling it the “Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment.” This amendment does nothing to expand, protect, or improve any reproductive rights or treatments for adults. What this amendment actually does is empower the government to override parental rights and to do “gender transitions” on young children without parent knowledge or consent. By clever design this constitutional amendment avoids using the word “adult” and uses the word” individual” so that this specifically targets children of any age and is designed to destroy parent rights.

If we voters do not vote against and defeat Ballot Question # 1, then any anxious, stressed, or confused child could mention to a “provider” questions about their gender and that “provider” (who does not need to be a doctor or psychologist and does not even need to be licensed) could then activate the “gender transition” process without parental notification or consent. Children who currently cannot legally be given aspirins or vitamins without their parents’ consent would be able to get “sex change” drugs and permanent “sex change” genital mutilation surgeries initiated through school clinics or any “provider” without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

There will be nothing that a parent can do to stop it. Parents, Families or others who risk rescuing children from this fate will be considered criminals. Parents can lose custody of their children because they will be violating this new right. Similar anti-parent laws are now the law in California, Michigan, Ohio and Vermont, and 10 other states are proposing similar legislation. This crisis is not hypothetical, parents who opposed government’s and provider’s decision to “gender transition” their children are currently losing custody of their children.

If you believe that parents – not government, not providers – should raise their own children then you need to vote NO – vote against Question #1 – Constitutional Amendment, the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment. It will be on the general election ballot this September – November 2024. Please tell everyone about this amendment and send this editorial to as many people as you can through the Internet and social media. This is urgent because mail-in ballots can go out as early as September 22, 2024. Ask those you contact to distribute this information further so that everyone in the State of Maryland can be informed of the truth about this amendment. 

For more information, handouts and videos, please refer to the website of the statewide organization that is fighting to preserve parent rights: www.HealthNotHarmMD.org.

Dr. Kelly is a licensed physician and surgeon practicing here on the Eastern Shore. He has provided psychiatric treatment for many patients before, during and after gender transitions. Dr. Kelly is an Adult, Child, Adolescent & Forensic Psychiatrist, Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology, and Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He did his psychiatry residency at Johns Hopkins. Dr Kelly has testified frequently before the Maryland and Delaware legislatures on respect for life and related issues