Staff Reports
The U.S. Supreme Court just agreed to weigh a fight that any parent should care about: whether moms and dads can challenge state laws that let officials hide runaway teens and refer them for gender‑related care without telling the parents. The case — International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. v. Ferguson (No. 25‑840) — won certiorari, and the petitioners filed their merits brief on September 8, 2026. The Court will hear argument in December, and at the heart of the fight is a simple legal question dressed up in big words: who has the right to go to federal court when a law interferes with parenting?
What the Washington laws do — and who is suing
Parents and two parent‑rights nonprofits say a trio of Washington laws creates a pathway for shelters and state agencies to treat runaway teens as the state’s clients, not their parents’ — and to refer those teens for behavioral‑health services, including gender‑related care, without parental notice. The laws at issue include Senate Bill 5599 and House Bill 1406 from the 2023 session and a long‑standing statute that allows teens 13 and up to seek outpatient behavioral care. Petitioners are represented by conservative lawyers from First Liberty Institute and Schaerr | Jaffe. The defendants are Governor Bob Ferguson, Attorney General Nick Brown, and Secretary Tana Senn of the state’s child welfare agency.
The real legal battle: standing and “What would Scalia do?”
The merits brief presses a doctrine borrowed from Justice Antonin Scalia: when a law names or directly targets a party’s interests, that party should have Article III standing to sue. The petitioners argue they are the very objects of Washington’s statutes because those laws change parents’ legal status and ability to get notice about and control over their children’s care. The Ninth Circuit said the parents lacked standing, so the Supreme Court must decide whether lower courts can shut the courthouse door before harm happens. In plain English: will parents get to ask a judge for help before a child is whisked into the system, or are they forced to wait until the damage is done?
Why this case matters beyond Washington
This is not a niche fight. If the Court accepts the petitioners’ view, it opens federal courts to pre‑enforcement parental challenges across many state policies that reassign decision‑making about minors. If the Court sides with Washington, lower courts will keep using standing doctrine to block pre‑emptive challenges, leaving parents with the Hobson’s choice of silent surrender or futile after‑the‑fact litigation. The docket shows a big conservative coalition backing the petitioners, and that should tell you how high the stakes are for parental rights, family law, and the role of federal courts.
Call it common sense or constitutional sense: parents should not have to wait for a worst‑case scenario to defend the basic right to know where their child is and what medical or behavioral interventions the state is arranging. The Supreme Court now has a clean vehicle to say whether parents are protected under Article III when a state changes their legal relationship with their children. If the Justices want to avoid a rerun of the Ninth Circuit’s legal dodge, they can do what Scalia would have done — recognize standing where the law plainly targets a parent’s core role. The calendar is set; the rest is up to the Court.
