HR.20: Mother’s Mandated Mental Health Tests
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Add to FavoritesThe bill, known as the ‘Melanie Blocker Stokes Mothers Act’ (among other titles) is under the guise of providing ‘research on, and services for individuals with, postpartum depression and psychosis.’ Seems harmless enough, right?
If the act is passed through the Senate it will mandate that all new mothers be screened by a number of tests that are used to determine how “mentally fit” that particular mother is and whether or not she should be allowed to care for her child.
Part of this bill will allow the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct a nationally representative longitudinal study (supposedly only taking place during the years of 2009-2018) on the mental health consequences for women who are or were pregnant. This includes carrying the pregnancy to term and keeping the child, placing the child for adoption, having a miscarriage, and having an abortion.
This study is suppose to measure all factors that come along with pregnancy and determine the mental health factors of the several pregnancy possible outcomes. Women who are found to have postpartum condition are eligible for a possible grant, although these grants don’t necessarily go to the individual and may instead go to an institution.
This bill appears to be harmless and may even be helpful for those who are in need, but where does the government draw the line? It’s still an invasion of privacy into the private sphere of people’s lives. Should the government really be granted the power to decide who is “fit” enough to be a parent and who is not? I for one would love to see these tests that could ultimately change a person’s life, and that of their child.
Update: The bill can be found here, http://www.govtrack.us/data/us/bills.text/111/h/h20rfs.pdf
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-20
http://www.govtrack.us/data/us/bills.text/111/h/h20rfs.pdf
The most obvious being a subject study like psychology being lense in which a judgement is made if someone is fit to be a mother. The next being a definition of a good mother being subjective. How about if the person interviews well. It is hugely offensive that they are only looking into the mother, what about the father. Will they decide mentally challenged people are not capable of being a parent, what if one parent isn't. What if the mother isn't even the one getting custody of the child. No one is a perfect parent their whole lives, especially at the beginning. What if the mother passes psych evaluation, but father wouldn't of and no one checked?
Horrible! Horrible idea! Mandatory psych evaluations.
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