Police State USA has been made aware of threatening letters being sent to parents by the government regarding their children's participation with compulsory medical and dental examinations. Under the auspices of keeping children healthy, the government has usurped the role of "parent" away from actual parents. The state - not legal guardians - is determining when and how children should be subjected to outside business influences.

The first letter was sent to Police State USA by a parent in New York State (NYS) "requiring" that his child be taken to mandated doctor visits. As the letter states:
NYS Education Law (Section 136.3) requires students to get medical exams when they start school and at certain grades. Exams may also be needed at other times chosen by your school.

To keep healthy, your child needs a complete physical at least once a year and a dental exam every six months.
In New York, after the unwanted examinations, the private medical exams are acquired by the government and filed under the child's cumulative school records.
Gov Letter to Parents
© Justin Russell/policestateusa.com
There are a number of problems with this policy, not all of which will be covered in this article. The state coercion and destruction of parental rights are most glaring. The provisions establish that the state has taken the final say in parenting matters, undermining parents' natural role in the child's life as protector and final decision maker. The provision invades the privacy of the family by giving the government access to private medical results.

Then there is the inherent problem of forcing people into unwanted business contracts, with parties they may not agree with, for services that may not be needed or wanted. The law states that the health certificates may only be signed by medical staff authorized by the state; meaning that parents' alternatives to fulfill this mandate are limited down to allopathic, pro-pharmaceutical doctors. Families who favor natural and holistic caregivers are undermined by virtue of exclusionary state licensing.

The compulsory examinations are enforced multiple times throughout a child's sentence in government schools. As declared in NYS Education Law Section 136.3:
Health certificates. It shall be the duty of the trustees and boards of education to require that each student, within 30 days after his or her entrance into school or within 30 days after his or her entry into the 2nd, 4th, 7th and 10th grades, submit to the principal or the principal's designee a health certificate that meets the requirements of this paragraph, provided that no health certificate shall be required of a student for which an accommodation for religious beliefs is made pursuant to subdivision (f) of this section.
The only reprieve that family's can receive from the mandatory exams is dependent upon them proving to the school's principal that the tests violate their "genuine and sincere" religious beliefs. Parents are even forced to provide supporting documentation. Subsection (f) reads:
Accommodation for religious beliefs. Notwithstanding the provisions of this section, no health examinations, health history, examinations for health appraisal, screening examinations for sickle cell anemia and/or other health screenings shall be required where a student or the parent or person in parental relation to such student objects thereto on the grounds that such examinations, health history and/or screenings conflict with their genuine and sincere religious beliefs. A written and signed statement from the student or the student's parent or person in parental relation that such person holds such beliefs shall be submitted to the principal or the principal's designee in which case the principal or principal's designee may require supporting documents.
Given that parents have to somehow convince the school administration of the sincerity of their convictions, these religious exemptions are restrictive and difficult to attain. Furthermore, the limited exemption establishes that anyone who is not devoutly religious does not deserve to be exempt from state compulsion, and that medical or philosophical reasons are invalid to the state.

Rather than demand that parents prove why they deserve to be exempted from the mandate, the government should be repelled from the realm of nannying children and dominating their parents' decisions. If there was no state compulsion there would not need to be exemption provisions.

An even more disturbing letter came to the attention of Police State USA from Minnesota. In a letter addressed from the Fond Du Lac Social Service, a parent who allegedly allowed a child to miss dental appointment(s) was threatened with being reported for being a neglectful parent to child protective services. It can be read below:
Gov Letter to Parents_1
© Crystal Soukkala
Threatening families with child confiscation over dental checkups, of all things, is a profound abuse by the government.

Granted, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is an Indian Reservation and subject to its own system of laws. But the rights of the parents and children are still being violated, and the cultural elevation of the government to the role of parent is something very much alive in the minds of many authoritarian residents of the United States.

The author of the threatening letter signed her name - Cindy Pattison - and left her phone number: (218) 878-2178. Concerned citizens should give her a call to discuss her brazen role in threatening families with child confiscation because of dental checkups.

To thwart the trend of families being violated by overzealous social service agencies, advocates for a free society should vehemently oppose the use of state compulsion wherever possible. As long as compulsory government schools exist, Americans should diligently resist unfair and unjust policies that violate individual and parental rights. But given the totality of the situation, removing children entirely from the influence of the government seems prudent to any parent who does not wish their child to be molded by the state. This is why the number of home-schoolers in the United States has increased by 75 percent over the past 14 years.