First hearing held for Republican bill to remove crisis mental health services for Ohio teens without parental consent

Ohio legislators held a first hearing last week for a bill (HB 172) to eliminate mental health resources without parental consent for teens experiencing a crisis.

The bill would remove an exception in the Ohio Revised Code that currently allows youth age 14-17 to access:

• Outpatient services from a mental health professional without parental consent if there is a “substantial probability of harm to the minor or to other persons.”
• No more than six sessions or 30 days of the above services, whichever occurs sooner.
  “This is a simple move,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Johnathan Newman (R-Troy), said at a hearing of the Ohio House Health Committee on May 21. 

Newman repeatedly contended during the hearing that the sole function of HB 172 is to bring the Ohio revised code into compliance with HB 8, the Parents’ Bill of Rights, signed into law this year by Gov. Mike DeWine. Under HB 8, school staff – including counselors, social workers and school psychologists – must out LGBTQ+ youth to their parents. 

There was a specific exception in that bill that allowed for these crisis-based mental health sessions; HB 172 would remove that support.

Newman is a first-term legislator and “pastor entrepreneur” with ties to Ohio’s Center for Christian Virtue (CCV), a conservative Christian lobbying organization that is currently listed on the anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Map published by the civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Newman does not believe transgender people exist.

“I don’t think there is such a thing as transgender,” Newman told the Dayton Daily News. “That’s not reality. A boy never, ever becomes a girl. A girl never, ever becomes a boy. That’s not reality. That cannot happen.”

Back and forth
The bulk of the hearing for HB 172 was focused on a back-and-forth between Newman and Rep. Karen Brownlee (D-Symmes Twp.), a clinical social worker. 

Brownlee repeatedly tried to explain that HB 172 would remove language in the Ohio Revised Code (5122.04) used by mental health professionals to support teens in imminent crisis of harming themselves, harming others or being harmed by others. 

“5122.04 does not specifically address emergency or crisis care,” Newman said.

“5122.04 is specifically the portion of the code that deals with crisis care,” Brownlee responded.

There was further confusion as Newman said that nothing about emergency mental health services would change under HB 172, only that parents would be notified first before those services were provided. 

When Democrat colleagues on the Health Committee highlighted that there are scenarios when the parents themselves are the abusers, Newman said that those cases must be reported to the proper authorities, but that parents still must be notified first before the care is given.

“Then there would be no safe space for that child,” Brownlee said. 

Rep. Rachel Baker (D-Cincinnati) asked Newman if he consulted with any mental health professionals or organizations in preparing HB 172.

“I have not spoken with them,” Newman responded, saying instead that the bill was informed by “many interested parties” advocating for parents’ rights. 

In conversation with The Buckeye Flame after the hearing, Rep. Brownlee said that HB 172 was discriminatory and that it was shocking than “an adult would like to restrict a child from life-saving mental healthcare.”

“There was a clear lack of understanding about how mental health crisis care is delivered to young people,” she said. 

Brownlee further highlighted that HB 8 specifically carved out an exception to provide crisis care for LGBTQ+ youth without parental consent, which she hopes demonstrates an understanding that this is lifesaving care. 

“This care should not be tied to manufactured culture war because this is literally life-or-death harmful to young people,” she said. ¿