Michelle Hennessee Sears - Freedom Voter Guide

Party:

Democrat

District:

58

Office:

State House or Assembly

Survey Responses:

S = Support
O = Oppose
NR = No Response

Life	S	O	NR
1. Protecting Life: Protecting the right to life of an unborn baby with a beating heart.		X
2. Taxpayer Funded Abortion: Allowing taxpayer dollars to fund organizations that provide abortion.	X
3. Physician-Assisted Suicide: Allowing voluntary physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.	X

Candidate's Comments:

I believe that medical decisions should be made by physicians and their patients for the best interest of their patients within their scope of practice and accepted medical standards. Physicians should not be restricted from providing evidence based medical care to their patients by state or federal legislators who are not medical professionals. If we are not going to supply comprehensive sex education, which is evidence based to be the most effective way to prevent unwanted pregnancies, then tax dollars should be provided to organizations that offer reproductive education and medical services regardless of their status as an abortion provider.

First Amendment	S	O	NR
4. Conscience Rights for Professionals: Prohibiting the government from denying required licensure or certification to individuals because of their religious or political beliefs.		X
5. Conscience Rights for Faith-Based Organizations: Exempting faith-based organizations (e.g. adoption/foster care providers, private schools) from regulations that cause them to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.		X
6. Prohibiting De-Banking/Insuring Based on Beliefs: Prohibiting financial institutions from shutting a customer’s bank account or canceling their insurance because of their religious or political views.		X

Candidate's Comments:

Questions 4, 5, 6: These questions are not as simple as opposing or supporting and need more context in order for me to form an opinion on true opposition or support. Licensure requirements are there to ensure that providers are practicing ethically within their scope of practice and with evidence based treatments. Anyone who is seeking a professional license needs to understand that their personal beliefs should not cross into their practice when it directly conflicts with evidence based treatment. Adoption/Foster care/Private schools that are accepting public tax dollars or any public funds should be required to follow all applicable laws, policies, and regulations. If they opt not to accept any public funds then they can create whatever policies they would like. Foster/Adoptive parents do not have to accept a specific foster or adoptive child into their home if their religious beliefs would prevent them from accepting that child(ren) as they are and providing them with a safe and loving home. No business can legally refuse to provide services based on the customer's beliefs, but they can refuse service if the customer is substantially burdening their religious practices. Since commercial and retail banks, along with credit unions are businesses, they are required to follow state and federal laws.

Family	S	O	NR
7. Protecting Kids from Social Media: Requiring platforms to by default prevent underage accounts without parental permission, preserve parents' authority when access is allowed, and remove addictive design features and data exploitation from underage accounts.	X
8(a). Parental Rights: Allowing parents to obtain professional counseling for a child struggling with gender confusion to help the child find comfort with his or her biological sex.		X
8(b). Parental Rights: Protecting parents from losing custody of their child solely because they treat their child consistent with his or her biological sex.		X

Candidate's Comments:

8(a) and (b). This issue is substantially more complicated than what anyone is making it out to be. I have a transgender child. Research clearly demonstrates that children who are forced to accept a gender expression based upon the outward genital expression is harmful to them long term. It creates additional trauma and mental health issues. Conversion therapies have routinely been debunked and have been demonstrated to be abusive and harmful. Medical professionals have accepted that gender isn't as simple as the outward genetic expression of genitalia. Gender is a social construct, not a medical one, and there are more than 2 sexes from a medical standpoint. Women with PCOS who have hormonal differences technically fall under the umbrella of transgender from a medical standpoint simply because of hormones. There are people who are born with both sets of genitalia or people who are born with an outward genetic expression of genitalia that doesn't match their internal reproductive organs. From a parenting standpoint, forcing your child to conform to the gender that matches their genitals isn't necessarily a reason to lose custody in and of itself, but other behaviors that could be associated could constitute emotional abuse and would warrant intervention. There is also emerging research that children who have experienced trauma, abuse, neglect are more likely to demonstrate expanded gender expression so thorough evaluation of the family needs to be conducted in order to determine if there is historical abuse/neglect and if there is any abuse/neglect that is continuing to occur.

Education	S	O	NR
9. School Choice: Allowing the use of tax credits, vouchers, and/or education savings accounts to cover the cost of children attending the school of their parents’ choice, including private religious schools.		X
10. Free Speech at School: Protecting teachers and students from being forced to refer to a person by inaccurate pronouns that do not align with the person’s sex.		X
11. School Healthcare Disclosure to Parents: Requiring schools to inform parents of any mental, physical, or emotional health information and treatment that a child is receiving at school.	X
12. Transparency in School Curriculum & Activities: Giving parents access to the curriculum, presentations, and activities that their children are learning in school and allowing them to opt their children out of school extra-curricular activities, presentations, or specific lessons to which the parents object.	X

Candidate's Comments:

Taxes are meant to support public entities, not private ones. If a family wants their child to attend a specific school outside of a public school, then they should be required to financially support that educational choice. If a parent is enrolling a student in public school that is outside of their home district, they should be required to supply justification for that change and would be responsible for providing transportation for that student. Teachers are professionals and can provide their students with dignity and respect by addressing them in the way that they prefer, just as students are required to address their teachers in the way that they prefer. As an employer, if someone was intentionally addressing me in such a way that was not respectful to me, this would be unprofessional and would lead to disciplinary action. Our individual rights and beliefs end where someone else's begin. Any mental health treatment that is being provided by a school to a minor should have parental consent, but the content of those sessions is protected information and does not have to be disclosed to the parent unless there is an immediate safety concern that would need to be addressed within the home for the student. Parents should have the ability to opt-out from any lessons that they do not want their child to participate in, but if they are opting out of lessons that are required for graduation then they and their student need to understand the ramifications of opting out of those lessons, meaning that their child may not be able to graduate.

Health and Welfare	S	O	NR
13. Medical Rights of Conscience: Protecting health care workers from losing their jobs if they decline to participate in a procedure or treatment that violates their personal beliefs and conscience.	X
14. Women’s Privacy: Preventing males who identify as female from entering sex-separated spaces intended for females, such as showers, locker rooms, bathrooms, dormitories, women’s shelters, prisons, etc.		X
15. Protecting Pregnancy Centers: Ensuring pregnancy centers that provide life-affirming support to women and their families are not targeted or penalized by government officials.	X

Candidate's Comments:

13. I believe that healthcare workers should be able to decline to perform elective procedures that are not emergent in nature when there is another provider available to perform the procedure or treatment. If the procedure or treatment is emergent or delay could cause irreparable harm to the patient, then the healthcare professional is ethically bound to supply that treatment or procedure otherwise they should face licensing sanctions and also be open to civil and criminal charges if the patient is harmed by their declination. 14. There are no sex separated spaces, only gender separated spaces. Would you want a father of young girls to have to let his children use a bathroom by themselves or even worse, rely on strangers to assist with toileting? Or would you prefer that a father be able to take his daughters into the bathroom that he believes is the most appropriate? What should adults do who have developmental disabilities and require toileting support do when there are not family bathrooms and only bathrooms that are gender separated? 15. If pregnancy centers that focus on life afforming support cannot be targeted or penalized by the government then centers that provide medically necessary abortive procedures should also not be targeted or penalized by the government.