Pedersen (Image: senatedemocrats.wa.gov )
Capitol Hill’s state Sen. Jamie Pedersen (D-Seattle) is finding out that simply telling some people about the rule of law in 2025 is enough to set off controversy.
The veteran Washington lawmaker, lawyer, and Capitol Hill resident has gone viral across right-wing social media this week for his answer to Fox News explaining a 40-year-old state law.
“If it’s about their mental health care, we’ve drawn a line I think at age 13 in the statute and say that kids over 13 have the complete right to make their own decisions about their mental health care,” Pedersen said, according to a report featuring a full transcript of the interview. “Parents don’t have a right to have notice, they don’t have a right to have consent about that.”
“Kids over 13 have the complete right to make their own decisions about their mental health care. Parents don’t have a right to have notice, they don’t have a right to have consent about that,” is the clip Fox aired and that spread across social media.
While Pedersen was addressing a Republican-backed legislative effort to bolster a so-called “parental bill of rights” in the state by lawyerly referring to the Washington law concerning behavioral health services for minors, the quote struck a chord with the likes of Elon Musk and critics seeking to do more to restrict minors when it comes to transgender and abortion rights.
As usual, much of the rage is misplaced. The Washington law around parental notice dates to 1985.
The new bill at the heart of the debate over Pedersen is also on its way to becoming law. Senate Bill 5181 passed last week to make what Democrats say are legally required changes to a parental bill of rights initiative approved last year. A similar bill spelling out rules around things like parental notification around crimes and the rights of students must now pass through the state House.
Pedersen joined Washington’s Senate representing the 43rd District including Capitol Hill in 2013. He was first elected to the State House of Representatives in 2006. This year, Olympia’s Democrats selected Pedersen to serve as Majority Leader in the state senate. The Democrats said Pedersen’s election “marks a historic milestone” as Washington became the first state in the nation to have two members of the LGBTQ community serving as legislative leaders at the same time.
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Parents in this state have no ability or rights to see any of their children’s medical records when they turn 13. We cannot have a real discussion about what is real or not in the law unless we tell the full truth. I can understand a law that says a teen’s discussions with a therapist are private even from the parents, but our state laws go much much further than that.
That’s not correct. Parents lose access to certain types of “sensitive” records after their children turn 13, and some providers limit their MyChart proxy access, but parents still have access to the vast majority of their children’s’ health information until they turn 18.
It was never a good law. Parents need to be involved in healthcare for families and kids at 13 don’t have the life experience to make all health decisions for themselves.
What Sen Pedersen does not mention is that when this law was originally passed the intent was to let kids access care for therapy and substance abuse counseling. Since then the scope of the law has steadily increased to include things like medications, reproductive care and gender affirming care. When Sen Pedersen says things like kids over the age of 13 can do whatever they want without parental consent people are rightly surprised because they probably haven’t paid attention to the increase in scope of this law. It also doesn’t make sense when you consider kids are not allowed to get a tattoo until they turn 18 and many progressives argue juvenile offenders should be given lighter sentences because brains aren’t fully developed until they are older. While the hubris displayed by Sen Petersen won’t likely cost him next election (this is the 43rd after all) it will further increase the notion that democrats in Olympia could care less about their constituents and live in a idealogical bubble.
It totally makes sense… At 13 most kids are into puberty. While the world has changed over the last few decades, remember that not every parent is loving and supportive. Kids who fear what may happen if their parents know that they are LGBTQ, they should absolutely be able to access health care without being outed. Kids able to reproduce should also be able to access birth control and talk to a provider about sexual health whether or not their parents agree..
Living here it probably doesn’t even occur to you that this is stuff that can still get kids punished, abused.. kicked out of their homes in more conservative areas.
The State with a multi-billion dollar hole in its budget is going to take care of your kids….
How nice!