Barbara Pfeffer Billauer: Liberty has limits, no matter who’s doing the espousing … including Moms for Liberty

Much of the colloquy centers around the affability of its leader, Maria Adams, and the saga of her little boy, whose medical condition dictates an exemption from masking requirements. Then there’s the piece of parents’ “fundamental rights to bring up children” leaching into a discussion on curriculum development and book burning.

The mélange of flavors and topics in Davenport’s piece obscures the critical issue, with human interest overtaking the immediate public health concern: Adams’ claimed “absurdity of mask mandates.”

Surely Ms. Adams is entitled to an expeditious solution to her child’s health problem. But she misunderstands the legal and scientific limits of parental rights in the face of a public health crisis. As deftly as Adams articulates and as artfully Davenport weaves and obscures, what Adams wants for her children (aka, parental authority) is not absolute and cannot be sanctioned if it impacts the health of this child or others, at least according to the U.S. Supreme Court in Prince v. Massachusetts. Presumably as patriots, I would hope that Adams and Davenport will defer to the U.S. Supreme Court and that their positions are based on ignorance rather than demagoguery gussied up in “a soft-spoken, highly articulate, successful woman of diverse backgrounds.”

Mr. Griffin gives us the needed background: M4L was born in Florida in 2021. This just happens to coincide with Ron DeSantis’ anti-mask mandate in school districts — including punishing school boards that failed to abide by withdrawing state funding. While DeSantis loudly (and falsely) proclaims COVID is not a disease of children, while his legislation was rubber-stamped by a politically appointed administrative court judge and while it was empowered by two politically appointed surgeons general (one loudly condemned by the mainstream medical community for his anti-vax sentiments), the general consensus of the American medical community now concedes that COVID is a disease of everyone, with children, often asymptomatic, being prime spreaders and transmission vectors, and responsible for some of Florida’s worst statistics.

Bulldozing the school district’s medical experts who vehemently defended the crucial need for masking, the Florida administrative law judge kowtowed to an anti-mainstream activist who apparently is not licensed to practice medicine.

While DeSantis’ proponents claim very few children died from COVID, DeSantis’ opponents (me included) claim that “children are not supposed to die.” Indeed, very few children died from COVID, but sacrificing even one child to COVID on the altar of liberty — and freedom from masking — is rather reprehensible, if you ask me.

“Engaged parents” without a scientific or legal background might find it more beneficial to their child’s welfare to learn basic immunology and Consitutional Law 101 before arguing parental supremacy.

And any group that claims they have the right to make decisions which impact the health of other children on the grounds of personal liberty doesn’t understand that liberty — even in America — has limits.

To paraphrase the immortal words of Harvard Law Professor Zechariah Chafee, “One person’s liberty ends where the other person’s nose begins.”

As a recent newcomer to Greensboro (who chose to relocate here, rather than Florida), I am appalled to see DeSantis’ views of liberty uber alles infiltrating my new hometown.