In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Supreme Court declared that “the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

The state of Washington is poised to reject this truth. The state’s Senate Bill 5599 would allow “gender-affirming care” to be done to children who have run away from their homes and without parental consent. Though the bill does not make clear what medical treatments fall under this “care,” the term generally includes hormone treatment, puberty blockers, and even surgical procedures. It now has passed both chambers of the state legislature and likely will receive the governor’s signature.

The Washington bill is an unconscionable attack on parental rights. It seeks to shove mothers and fathers out of their rightful role, replacing them with a supposedly more wise and benevolent state. Doing so misunderstands the nature of human society, including the role of the state and the duties of parents.

Regarding society, we are made for community, not for a solitary existence. The state is one form of that community. But our relationships to each other are not found only in and through the state. Instead, we also are part of various other associations, including religious groups, philanthropic organizations, and other clubs. Among the most important, we are part of families, made up of parents, grandparents, children, siblings, and others.

Each association has a role to play in society’s greater goal of protecting human life and enabling the pursuit of human goods. The state exists to protect the natural rights of those under its jurisdiction. This task certainly gives it duties in relation to children. It must ensure that parental abuse or negligence does not occur. The state also has an interest in cultivating healthy and moral citizens that themselves respect the rights of others. Thus, it has some say in children’s education, especially whether young citizens gain basic knowledge in reading, writing, math, science, and our country’s history.

But these goals are limited. They do not give the state permission to act in a tyrannical manner that reduces all human relationship to that between itself and individuals and all human goals to its own purposes. Families, especially, possess a sphere of independence in relation to government as well as to other forms of human organization. This independence extends both from the family’s origins and purposes. The state did not create the family; it preexisted the state. It thereby does not depend on the state to give it legitimacy or purpose. Parents thus share the goal with the state of protecting, nurturing, and educating children. But the parents have the primary responsibility on this front. The state functions as a backstop and facilitator.

Moreover, as Pierce recognized, the parents’ duty in caring for children goes well beyond the purposes of the state. Mothers and fathers raise children to be more than good citizens. They instruct their sons and daughters in religious faith, in loving one’s neighbors, and in how to be spouses and parents themselves. A link here exists between parental rights and parental duties. Parents possess rights in relation to society and government in making decisions regarding their children. They receive broad deference from the laws in how they raise these children. But they possess these rights, this deference, as means to fulfill their parental duties.

The Washington bill rejects these truths and undermines these structures. It trends toward an all-pervasive state and sidelined or ignored parents. And in so doing, Washington state puts children in danger, bypassing the rights and wishes of parents in order to medicate and even mutilate children.

Instead of participating in children’s protection with and in service to parents, Washington wishes to deny parental rights to harm the most vulnerable among us in ways that deny our very human nature. That isn’t just unconscionable. It is insanity.

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.