Strollerderby : right to privacy

What If The State Kept Your Kid's Blood for "Research?"

JeanneSager — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:01:00 GMT

I never thought about what happened to the blood sample taken from my daughter in the maternity ward after she was born . . . until now.

Apparently in Texas, blood samples taken routinely from newborns are kept on hand to be used for research. Which doesn't bother me in the slightest.

But a bill making its way through the Texas Legislature will give parents who DON'T want their kids' blood used in research an out; they can ask for the blood sample to be destroyed rather than held onto by the state.

I understand there are huge privacy concerns here. Even though the state assures parents that the baby's names are not connected to the individual samples once the screenings for disease and defects are completed, we've all seen privacy breaches around the nation on supposedly "safe" credit card information, social security numbers and more. Who's to say health information is safe?

But I'm not sure I see the concern here. Is it that kids might be discriminated against if it gets out that they have a certain disease? Or that parents don't want the blood used for research? Because only three parents have actually complained about the issue so far. In one of the top states in terms of population, we're talking ridiculously low numbers of parents here.

Would you care what happens to a small vial of your child's blood?

Image: Maine.gov

Parents Sue School for Checking for Sex Offenders

JeanneSager — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:06:00 GMT

And the short-sighted parent of the year award goes to . . . two Texas parents who are suing their child's school because they're required to show their driver's license before being allowed access to a building full of children. The horrors, I know.

Yvonne and Larry Meadows say their rights are being violated by a program that compares would-be school visitors' driver's licenses to a database of registered sex offenders.

Yvonne says she's been told she'll be denied entrance to Bee Cave Elementary School unless she hands over her license. That, she said, puts her private information at risk. Besides, the Meadows' told the Austin American-Statesman they are guaranteed the freedom to associate with their children at school.

I'm kind of perplexed here. The school is a government agency, as is the department of motor vehicles - which provides the driver's license. Any information being picked up in the scans should already be in the system, which makes it hard to see how parents are suffering identity theft. Granted the school has contracted with a private company to do the checks, but several states contract with private companies to issue driver's licenses.

The license, by the way, isn't a guaranteed right. It's a privilege - which can be revoked. As is the so-called "right" to visit a school. At my daughter's pre-school, no one is allowed entrance unless they are recognized as a parent of one of the students or show some ID and a clear reason for being present. Even my in-laws had to present the teacher with identification to pick up their granddaughter. Hers is a private pre-school, but I'd like to think a public school would have a similar policy.

Public schools are the places where we send our children during the day, expecting them to return to us in the same shape in which they left. We put our trust in them to keep our kids safe, and protection from pedophiles ranks high on that list. I would think the Meadowses would prefer a little hassle at the door to having their child touched by a kiddie rapist (not a threat, merely an awful, disgusting fact of life). In the post-Columbine era, most schools have locked all but one entrance and placed someone there to monitor ingress and egress anyway. They reserve the right to turn anyone away. As a reporter, I quickly learned to bring both my press pass and driver's license with me to the doorway lest I be sent back to my car and end up late to my interview. At times, my ID has been taken for me to claim on the way out - the school's way of ensuring people check in before they leave, so they can tell who is in the building and when.

Is this any different? Would you feel violated if you were asked to provide ID or feel like your kids were a little safer?

Image: WRAL

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FLA Bill to Require DNA Tests on All Pregnant Minors

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:38:00 GMT

A Florida State Senator has proposed a bill which would require health care workers and abortion clinics to take DNA samples from pregnant girls under 16 and submit them to law enforcement within 24 hours. The samples would then be forwarded to the state Department of Law Enforcement, and then kept on file should they ever be needed in a sexual crime case.

The bill does not yet have any sponsors, and woe betide any fool who signs on. I appreciate the inclination to protect the young-uns from predators, but the right to privacy is what's at stake in cases such as these. We cannot force people to offer up DNA samples in the name of safety, no matter how compelling the argument. Not surprisingly, the bill has not yet been referred to a committee. And let's hope for the sake of this misdirected bill proponent that it never does.

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