Tennessee’s Family Bondage Law 2024

By Connie Reguli, J.D

Sign the petition to reject the Family Rights and Responsibilities Act of 2024 – no matter where you are.

Protect parental rights in Tennessee.  We need your support to STOP the Tennessee General Assembly from slicing and dicing parental rights with HB2936 sponsored by Rep. Jeremy Faison (HB2936) and Sen. Ferrell Haile (SB2749) Find the language here. 

EVERY PARENT IN TENNESSEE MUST STEP UP TO PROTECT THEIR FAMILY. 

Rep. Faison has in his mind that this bill is necessary to protect parental rights, but the United State Supreme Court has already established that parents have the right to raise their children, obtain medical treatment, and more.  (See below)

What the parental rights bill does is enumerate parental rights and then provides multiple exceptions for the government to block parents from protecting those rights.  The bill includes the word “unless” five times and then provides a slippery slope of exceptions like when a parent provides “blanket consent” or when any person represents themselves has having authority to consent to to waive parental rights (you correct, this is very scary).  

Let’s talk about UNLESS.  The word unless is used five times and gives reasons for parental rights to be subverted by the government.  Like, the government’s right to interrogate to your child without your knowledge or consent.  This bill allows for a complete absence of consent when there is  “law enforcement interaction”…..  So the SRO (school resource officer) can stop your child at school and isolate them to interrogate them? YES.  And of course DCS (Dept. of Children’s Services) can do the same.  The bill DOES NOT require government officials to establish probable cause with credible evidence.  The Fourth Amendment protects persons from search and seizure unless probable cause has been established.  Federal case law is clear on this.  However, children have no protection from Fourth Amendment seizure and interrogation under this bill.  Probable cause is not required.  

Are you seeing the problem? 

Then we get into a very slippery and the barely comprehensible clause when parental rights do not apply like for “a minor participating in a program for which the minor’s parent has consented to the child’s participation by an employee of the institution of higher education OR OTHER SCHOOL OFFICIAL.”   If your reaction is “I totally do not understand when this applies” you are correct that it is confusing and likely has a broader scope of application than it appears on its face.  

So who is giving consent….the parent or the employee or other school official.  And what is the participation……in a program of higher education?…for minors.  I have a feeling that this is more than college attendance.  What if the college has a summer program for high school student on creative writing, coding, or any subject?  Now the enrollment in this program is a waiver of all of your parental rights? YES 

Let’s go back to “blanket consent“.  Now school admission papers, or perhaps any other activity for minors, will include a “blanket consent” clause.  Parents will need to read the FINE print on everything associated with their child.  Years ago, I sued a kids jumping facility because they allowed someone other than the parent to sign the waiver.  I won.  Now those facilities are very careful about waivers. 

Another section of gobble-gook language says that there are no parental rights when “a government entity or any other person reasonably relies in good faith on an individual’s representations that the individual is the parent of a minor child or has otherwise been granted authority to make decisions regarding a minor’s care under state law.”   In layman’s terms this means that a person providing medical or mental health treatment for your child can avoid any liability by saying … OOPS I MADE A MISTAKE.  THAT OTHER PERSON GAVE ME PERMISSION (whomever that other person may be).  This provides for complete exoneration for any who when they rely on someone else’s representation.  

Can you see where this is going? 

Under the medical decision-making section, the law defines a PERSON as “an individual, corporation, or any other legal or commercial entity, whether or not a citizen or domiciliary of this state and whether or not organized under the laws of this state.”  

And a PERSON under this bill can administer EMERGENCY care to your child without your consent.  Please note that it DOES NOT SAY – LIFE SAVING CARE.  So what is an emergency?  Is the governor’s executive order calling for a State of Emergency giving any commercial entity the right to treat your child?  YES IT DOES.  Is your child’s gender dysphoria an emergent situation for your child?  It depends on who is asking.   

Although this bill pretends to give parents a legal right of action to sue anyone who violates their parental rights, the bill is so perverted and packed with exceptions that NO ATTORNEY will touch a case.  And what parent can afford 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars to sue a government or commercial entity who has dozens of attorneys to protect them from liability?  Any school or other other entity will include an ‘indemnity‘ clause, which means, if you allow your child to participate or receive treatment you will NOT sue us.  

An organization called ADF (Americans for Defending Freedom) sent a representative to try to convince the General Assembly to pass this bill on March 5, 2024, claiming that 17 other states have passed “substantially similar” bills.  But this is not true.  After researching the parental rights bills across the country, nineteen states have parental rights bills but only five of the more recent bills have plugged in this type of “exception” list which, by law, gives the government the right to ignore parental rights.  

Many states, like Michigan, Nevada, Virginia, and Montana have set forth a very clear statement that parental rights are fundamental rights and the government must show a compelling interest to interfere.  Any government interference must be narrowly drawn to set the least restrictive environment.  

ParentalRights.org is working on establishing a federal law protecting parental rights that is simple and direct and it is not filled with exceptions and tricky language to exonerate those who continue to try to interfere with these rights.  

That proposed Parental Rights Amendment says this: 

• Section 1. The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing,
  education, and care of their children is a fundamental right.
• Section 2. The parental right to direct education includes the right to choose, as an alternative to public education, private, religious, or home schools, and the right to make reasonable choices within public schools for one’s child.
• Section 3. Neither the United States nor any State shall infringe these rights without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.
• Section 4. The parental rights guaranteed by this article shall not be denied or abridged on account of disability

One state, ALABAMA, enacted a similar simple parental rights act last year and now seeks to include these rights in their constitution.  

BOTTOM LINE – Tennessee parents, grandparents, and other concerned citizens must stop the Tennessee General Assembly from passing this parental bondage bill.  

Please sign this petition to be presented to the sponsor and committee members. 

HERE ARE THE LINKS TO MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY THAT YOU CAN CONTACT DIRECTLY: (Click on the link and there is an “Email Legislator” button or use the email address below. 

Tell them to vote NO on HB2936 – the parental rights bill 

Sponsor:  JEREMY FAISON                            rep.jeremy.faison@capitol.tn.gov 

Committee Chair: MARY LITTLETON            rep.mary.littleton@capitol.tn.gov 

Committee Co-Chair:  ANDREW FARMER    rep.andrew.farmer@capitol.tn.gov

Other members: 

RUSH BRICKEN    rep.rush.bricken@capitol.tn.gov

RON M. GANT   rep.ron.gant@capitol.tn.gov

JOHNNY GARRETT   rep.johnny.garrett@capitol.tn.gov

TORREY HARRIS    rep.torrey.harris@capitol.tn.gov

DARREN JERNIGAN   rep.darren.jernigan@capitol.tn.gov

JASON POWELL   rep.jason.powell@capitol.tn.gov

ROBERT STEVENS     rep.robert.stevens@capitol.tn.gov

This petition is sponsored by Family Forward Project – Building Better Stronger Families. 

Follow Family Forward Project on Facebook. 

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Connie Reguli, J.D. Tennessee 

For curious minds….

It is well established by the United States Supreme Court that parents have fundamental interest to parent their children.  The state may not interfere in child rearing decisions when a fit parent is available.  Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944), Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925), Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923).   A child also has a constitutionally protected interest in the companionship and society of his or her parents.  Ward v. San Jose, 967 F. 2d 280  (9th Cir. 1992) A state employee who withholds a child from her family may infringe on the family’s liberty of familial association.  Murphy v. Morgan 914 F. 2d 846  (7th Cir. 1990)  The forced separation of parent from child, even for a short time; represent a serious infringement upon the rights of both.  J.B. v. Washington County, 127 F. 3d 919  (10th Cir. 1997)  Absent extraordinary circumstances, a parent has a liberty interest in familial association and privacy that cannot be violated without adequate pre-deprivation procedures. Malik v. Arapahoe Cty. Dept. of Social Services 91 F. 3d 1306  (10th Cir. 1999)  Parent’s interest is of “the highest order,” and the court recognizes “the vital importance of curbing overzealous suspicion and intervention on the part of healthcare professionals and government officials.  Thomason v. Scan Volunteer Services, Inc.  787 F. 2d 403  (8th Cir. 1996) 

Alabama’s embryo decision is contrary to Tennessee law where would-be babies can be destroyed.

By Connie Reguli, J.D. – Family Policy Specialist and Activist

Image from FreePix – 2024

In the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court’s recent opinion that frozen embryos are human life and therefore subject to the wrongful death of a minor laws in the state, there has been a stir of political comments, a suspension of IVF (in vitro fertilization) services, and a general nervousness about the future of this reproductive technology.  

As soon as the Alabama decision circulated in national headlines, Tennessee Senator Jack Johnson made an inquiry to Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti who opined that the destruction of embryos from IVF would not come under the Tennessee abortion ban law that passed in 2019.  Skrmetti said that disposing of a human embryo that has not been transferred to a woman’s uterus is not punishable as a ‘criminal abortion’. 

Skrmetti’s position is consistent with Tennessee case law.  The case of Davis v. Davis reached the highest court in Tennessee in 1992.  The couple had married and had determined to resolve their inability to conceive a child with in vitro fertilization.  The medical procedure successfully produced eight embryos.  Two embryos were implanted in the womb of Mary Sue Davis, but the transplant was not successful.  Six frozen embryos remained when the parties became embroiled in divorce proceedings.  While many divorcing couples fight over retirement accounts and toasters, the Davis’ were conflicted on what to do with the embryos.  Junior Davis (the husband) wanted the embryos destroyed.  Mary Sue wanted to keep the embryos for future implantation or donation to someone else.  The Courts struggled to find the appropriate resolution.  

The Tennessee trial Court ruled that it was in the best interest of the unborn children that they be awarded to Mary Sue.  Junior appealed arguing that it was unconstitutional to force him to become a father.  The Court of Appeals awarded the couple joint custody of the embryos and said that they could be implanted for full development only if both parents agreed.  Mary Sue appealed to the Supreme Court. 

The Tennessee Supreme Court provided an extensive argument, discussing whether the embryos were property or whether their pre-embryo state made them something less than a person.  In fact, the Court said that pre-embryos “lack legal personhood”.  They concluded that the Davis’ lacked a property interest in the embryos, but since they both contributed genetic material, they retained joint decision making authority over the outcome.  In its June 1992 decision, the court decided that Junior’s burden of enduring unwanted parenthood outweighed Mary Sue’s burden of being unable to donate the pre-embryos to another couple.  If there is a dispute between those who contribute gametes to the creation of the embryos, they will be destroyed unless both parties agree to maintain them or dispose of them by giving them away. 

The Alabama Court concluded in its opinion that: 

This Court has long held that unborn children are “children” for purposes of Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, 6-5-391, Ala. Code 1975, a statute that allows parents of a deceased child to recover punitive damages for their child’s death. The central question presented is whether the Act contains an unwritten exception to that rule for extrauterine children — that is,unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed. Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children,regardless of their location.

The conservative outcry is that the Alabama court opinion is detrimental for persons suffering from infertility and who turn to IVF in hopes of completing the cycle of procreation with the assistance of science.  Alabama legislators are scrambling to find a legislative remedy.  The Alabama Attorney General announced that the State had no intention of prosecuting IVF clinics for the destruction of embryos.  And Eagle Forum agreed that this decision should not limit IVF reproduction. 

A bill already filed in Alabama by Democratic legislators says the fertilized human egg or human embryo outside of a human uterus “under any circumstances” would not be considered “an unborn child, a minor child, a natural person, or any other term that connotes a human being for any purpose under state law.”  Rep. Tim Melson said, “We all know that conception is a big argument that it’s life…I won’t argue that point, but it’s not going to form into a life until it’s put into the uterus.”

This battle is a slippery slope whose unintended consequences are vast.  Knee-jerk reactions by state legislators without a policy position are bound to set up a supply of human fetal tissue to the dark side.  

Project Veritas produced an expose on the fetal tissue industry in 2015 showing undercover videos discussing the transactions of aborted body parts.  His production was attacked by liberal media who relied on Planned Parenthood remarks to discredit the report.  

Flashback to April 2016 when the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives held a hearing on “The Pricing of Fetal Tissue”.  Three former U.S. prosecutors on the panel testified that there was sufficient evidence to launch a federal grand jury investigation based on the exhibits provided.

By 2017, the Department of Justice initiated an investigation into the sale and transfer of fetal body parts.  In 2019, the NIH (National Institutes of Health) published an article on the importance of providing fetal tissue to science. The article said that the Trump administration has effectively banned government-funded research on fetal tissue. The article goes on to describe in detail various biomedical experiments that depend on fetal cells.  By 2021, another Congressman called for an investigation.  It remains an unresolved problem.  

Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, twenty-one states have bans on abortions.  Liberal media claims that abortion rates continue to rise, but the Center for Disease Control (CDC) statistics stop in 2021.  

IVF is another source of fetal tissue full stop.  If the medical magic of IVF creates eight embryos and only one is permitted to reach “personhood” by full gestation, the lab is left with seven embryos of human tissue.  IVF is rarely a case in which a single embryo is transplanted into the intended mother. After multiple embryos are transferred and begin to grow,  fetal reduction surgery is used to rip growing embryos from the womb, just another variety of abortion. 

If Alabama passes a law that states that the embryo is not human, the participants in IVF and clinics will have free reign to sell tissue or even incubate the embryos in artificial wombs for market distribution as babies for sale or as valuable research tissue.  

So state legislatures are faced with the dilemma of protecting living tissue versus harboring embryos as property which can be bargained to the highest bidder.  They must either police the destruction of tissue that they deem as “non-human” or they must control the production of the living tissue in the first place.  

Conservatives must be preemptive and acknowledge that voluntary participation in reproductive science with the purpose of producing a living organism is procreation.  It is no different from sexual intercourse.  Those who participate in procreation have a duty of care to what they create.  There is no viable option for controlling the disposition of embryos.  If we let this proverbial cat out-of-the-bag it will be decades before we acknowledge the damage.  We should revisit the 1940’s invasion into the body of Henrietta Lacks for scientific research. It is still debated. 

Our Tennessee legislators must take a stand for public policy that promotes conservative values and craft a careful remedy.   

Connie Reguli, J.D. has a law degree and worked the trenches of the legal landmines in Tennessee for three decades traveling for half of Tennessee’s 95 counties.  She has worked over 40 appeals in the state courts; she is responsible for two significant Tenn. Sup. Ct. developments, and she has carved out civil rights for families and children in the Sixth Circuit.  Her area of emphasis is the integrity of the family unit, the perverted federal funding behind programs that affect the family, and abolishing the current child welfare system.  She wears the battle scars from fighting for liberties in the Tennessee courts, but wants to share her knowledge and analysis with other God-fearing conservatives.  She can be found on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube.  

More articles 

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/alabama-ivf-ruling-puts-spotlight-state-plans-tax-107512073

The Controversial Concept of ‘Fetal Personhood’ Is Creeping Up on Florida

In Indiana, activists where quick to act. They believe access to health care, birth control and abortions play a key role in women’s health. “We know that the people of Indiana want this access,” said Haley Bougher, of Indiana Planned Parenthood. “They’re not giving it a chance.”

Activists in Iowa

Explosive device in Alabama

WHEN THEY TAKE YOUR KID

Republish from PITT / Substack (Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans)

Note from Connie Reguli: All of this is so true. I have seen it in real time with hundreds of parents. We are a society on the brink of collapse.

I was one of the unfortunate early ones. Now, as we’ve seen in the news and read here, it’s happening more frequently. Sorry about the second person, this was too painful to write in the first.

There’s no warning. They don’t come home from school, don’t come back from a visit, or people with name badges holding papers are suddenly at the door with a police officer saying things you are too in shock to understand.

You are in a panicked blur of phone calls, emails, shocked babbling family faces, texts, more phone calls and letters. Official mastheads and signatures frame stone walls of words. The voices and message tones of people who have tremendous power over your family’s well-being are hard, determined, even, empty. 

Your conferences with your lawyer, if you have one, are nightmarish from beginning to end. At first, you’re literally unable to believe what you are hearing.

Your court session feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone.

No contact with your child is allowed. No contact. No contact, no contact. No. Contact. Days, then weeks, then months. Smelling their clothes, seeing their room, hearing their voice on video feels like falling into a pit of spikes.

A twisted, bizarro-world path eventually emerges that you might be able to traverse that could possibly result in seeing your kid. Your lawyer incessantly tamps down your expectations.

Okay! We can do this! you say to yourself. You have to jump through their hoops, do their dance, and cooperate, cooperate, cooperate with every outlandish demand, keep your true feelings hidden, and stay focused on the most important thing, the thing you know will be best for your child: reunification as soon as possible. 

The things you are willing to do and say and endure in order to make that happen fill you with disgust and outrage.

Training videos? Readings? Therapy? No problem! Interviews with purse-lipped Guardian ad Litems with skeptical voices and trap questions? A psychological evaluation with a bored-sounding PhD, bazillion-question multiple-choice tests and hours of in-person sessions? Of course. All paid for by you until your accounts are empty and assets gone? Without a second thought.

You must say that you disavow your gender-critical beliefs, views which you have already expressed to your kid and your ex more than once. This is something you naively thought you would never feel pressure to do. It’s necessary in order to have the best chance at reunification sooner rather than later, your lawyer says. You agree to do so, an act that causes you the most shame of all.

You hope at first that cooperation will earn you accelerated progress and even the benefit of the doubt. But social services and the helping professions are populated mainly with those who have been trained to be woke activists in their work, especially if you are in a blue province/state. Most professionals you encounter interpret your words and actions in the worst possible way.

If you have the misfortune to read any of their reports, you are dumbfounded.

If, as occasionally happens, your co-parent or even your child has followed the coaching of trans activists to hint to the authorities at sexual improprieties by you, a chance at reunification may require you to subject yourself to the most invasive evaluation you can imagine. Sensors are attached to your body and cameras focused on your person while you are shown pictures and made to listen to disgusting and heartbreaking sounds. 

Not all of them are suggestive. Some are just normal pictures and audio of children. Don’t allow the fact that you miss your own child so desperately to trigger you in these moments, because any interest you show by lingering momentarily over those images or voices will be interpreted as sexual in nature. You will fail the sex-abuser test if you like kids too much. 

If the family service agency takes those hints seriously, they have referred them to the Crown/District Attorney, and a criminal investigation has been opened against you. You need a criminal attorney, your civil lawyer tells you. Your child is interviewed by a forensic psychologist and specialist attorney. 

I know these people. They are much better trained and more careful in their jobs than the family services staff, says your criminal lawyer, if you get one. They have a very clever methodology. Chances are good that they’re able to separate the fabrications and fantasies from the reality. Nevertheless, even when the investigation goes nowhere and you never hear from law enforcement, you are technically the subject of an open criminal case for the foreseeable future. They won’t close it until the statute of limitations is reached. 

You are afraid this will hurt your chances of seeing your kid again. It might, might not, your lawyer says. I DIDN’T ABUSE MY KID I’LL DO ANY INTERROGATION THEY WANT TO CLEAR MY NAME, you say. We can’t make a stink about it. That will only increase the chances they’ll charge you with something, your lawyer says. You’ll have to ask the court to allow your psych evaluator to view the video of the interview so they can include it in their report. But even if your kid didn’t disclose abuse and they’re not planning to charge you, the prosecutor will oppose it. 

WHY, you say. IF THEY KNOW I’M INNOCENT WOULDN’T THEY WANT ME TO REUNIFY WITH MY KID. Matter of principle, says your lawyer. Prosecutors prefer to keep all evidence for themselves in case they decide to charge you later.

Now you must head back into the Twilight Zone, and the robed and suited denizens mumbling their legal incantations to each other while you wonder whether you’ll ever see your kid again, and doubt your ability to make it through all of this without breaking down completely.

If you can afford it and/or it’s covered, maybe you could arrange to see a therapist of your own choosing, spill your guts and start to process the shock, the bone-deep grief and intense visceral pain and sadness. 

But if a therapist was the person who betrayed your family to begin with? And all the time you have spent in sessions and interviews observing these MSWs, PhDs and PsyDs has made you realize how clueless, presumptuous and arrogant they can be? So you’d have to keep your gender-critical views to yourself? You might be too wary of them.

Maybe you have found a therapist who thinks all the gender stuff is nonsense. If you live in a liberal area, maybe you can’t. Your insurance/Medicare may or may not cover virtual sessions with far-flung clinicians.

The prescription meds help some, if you get the right ones. The alcohol makes them go down easier and kick in quicker. Not more than a few gulps though, you don’t want to kill yourself while you are numbing yourself.

You sleep, but you don’t dream much. When you do, it’s a horror.

Of course your kid’s picture is your home screen on your phone and computer. You look at it obsessively, helplessly. You write them letters you are not allowed to send. You plan future birthdays, family gatherings, holidays that include them, then miss them.

If the separation drags on long enough, you start to be triggered by seeing other people’s kids yours’ age. You smile at them wistfully through your tears. Not too much though, especially if you’re a guy; people will think you’re creepy.

You’ve lost most of your real-life friends by this point. The ones who stick with you don’t know what to say. They look at you helplessly, as if they were seeing the victim of a car accident still trapped and in pain inside the wreckage waiting for the Jaws of Life.

But when those Jaws of Life finally, after endless struggle and interminable waiting, miraculously, joyfully come? And your chest grows tight and your throat constricts as you brace yourself not to break down bawling as you see them start to round the corner at the visitation center? All of it, every single outrage and humiliation and travesty is worth it, when you see your child’s face and feel their hug again.