Florida state Sen. Erin Grall (R) introduced a bill last week to promote “parental rights” by preventing doctors from treating minors’ sexually transmitted infections (STIs) without parental consent.

A parent’s or guardian’s consent is “not a prerequisite for examination” of a minor experiencing the symptoms of an STI, but it “is required for treatment,” reads S.B. 166. This means that if parental consent isn’t obtained, a minor could be diagnosed with syphilis but unable to receive antibiotics to treat it. Many STIs can cause permanent damage or even death if left untreated.

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Parental rights is a movement with deep roots. It’s spreading nationwide.

Under current Florida law, minors can get both diagnosed and treated for STIs without parental consent. Many teenagers are loath to talk to their parents about their sexual activities, and young people often believe that problems can go away on their own if they pretend like they don’t exist. Even if very few parents would deny their kids antibiotics to treat syphilis, requiring parental consent for such treatment could leave many minors untreated.

The bill contains other provisions that would also require parental consent for mental health questionnaires administered at schools and require schools to notify parents about those surveys. This has long been an issue for conservative parents’ rights advocates who worry that such surveys ask too many questions about students’ home lives.

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Stories about school questionnaires asking about students’ sexual orientation or gender identity often make the rounds in conservative online circles, with people saying that they’re inappropriate. Grall’s bill specifically says that parents have to be warned about questionnaires that ask about “political affiliations or beliefs of the child or the child’s family,” “sexual behavior or attitudes,” and “religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs of the child or the child’s parents.”

Parental consent would also be required for health care providers to talk about contraception with minor patients. Doctors couldn’t even provide maternal care to minors without getting parental consent, even if withholding that care could hurt the patient.

The bill would also ban outpatient care for mental health crises without parental consent, something that is allowed under current Florida law, according to the Space Coast Rocket, which notes that Grall is “a leading figure in Florida’s recent parental rights movement.”

Grall hasn’t responded to requests for comment about the bill.

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