By Attorney General Raúl Labrador
Dear Friends,
This week, I had the chance to speak about something that matters deeply to every parent and to me personally. The right of parents to make their own choices when it comes to guiding their children’s upbringing.
The question is as straightforward as it gets. Should parents have the authority to make decisions about their children’s upbringing and education, or should government?
For most of American history, the answer was obvious. Parents had the God-given right and responsibility to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children. This was common sense. It was natural law. That has started to change.
Government began inserting itself into decisions that belonged to families. Schools started teaching gender ideology and implementing policies behind parents’ backs. Bureaucrats started claiming they knew better than moms and dads. Parental authority got redefined as merely one voice among many.
A lot of people look at us in Idaho and think we don’t have to worry about these battles because we are a red state. But we’re not immune. Liberal groups challenge our commonsense laws regularly, attempting to stop conservative, pro-family legislation passed by our legislature. My office is in court every week defending them, and it matters because the consequences are real.
When government decides it knows better than parents, families suffer. When bureaucrats claim expertise that supersedes parental judgment, children in Idaho lose. When schools hide information from parents or make life-altering decisions about a child’s identity, education, or healthcare without parental involvement, we’ve crossed a dangerous line.
Parents have the right and the responsibility to guide the upbringing of their children. That decision should be left to parents and families, not liberal activists or government bureaucrats.
Government doesn’t know what’s best for your family. You do.
Government doesn’t lie awake at night worrying about your child’s future, praying for their safety, sacrificing for their success. You do.
When we defend parental rights, we’re defending something much bigger than any single policy. We’re defending the natural order. We’re defending liberty itself. We’re defending the idea that free people in a free society get to raise their children according to their values.
The fight over parental rights is not going away. There are powerful interests that genuinely believe they should have more authority over children in Idaho than their own parents. They use language about equity, access, and expertise. They claim to be acting in the child’s best interest.
Strip away their rhetoric, and you see what this really is. Concentrated power versus individual liberty. Government control versus family autonomy. Bureaucratic expertise versus parental love and judgment.
Winning this fight requires more than good intentions. It requires constitutional clarity. Legal precision. Intellectual courage. A willingness to defend foundational principles even when they’re unpopular.
That’s exactly what my office does. We defend Idaho’s laws protecting parental rights in court. We push back against federal overreach. We stand with parents who know their children better than any government official ever could.
Protecting Idaho families means protecting the right of parents to raise their children according to their values. And I will never stop fighting for that foundational right.
Best regards,
About Raúl Labrador
Raúl Labrador is the 33rd Attorney General of Idaho. The Office of the Attorney General provides legal representation for the State of Idaho. This representation is furnished to state agencies, offices and boards in the furtherance of the state's legal interests. The office is part of state government’s executive branch and its duties are laid out in the Idaho Constitution.
