OPINION -- The revelation of a mental health screening plan for all children in Illinois through age 18 and all pregnant women continues to spark an unprecedented number of letters to IllinoisLeader.com.

As a sampling of the outrage Leader readers are expressing, eight letters have been selected from those pouring in. More will be featured in the upcoming days.

Similar mandate issued in Nazi Germany

Could someone help me understand something about this mandate? How is this different from the one issued circa 1939-1940 in Germany? I'm sure people remember this mandate; the one where individuals and families of Jewish descent were compelled to wear a yellow Star of David. My understanding of the US Constitution, places the Illinois mandate at odds with the Bill of Rights -- the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I would appreciate any insight others may have regarding my concern.

Tracie Kaip
Dallas, TX

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Would compulsory ethics screening pass by the Assembly?

The fact that the Illinois General Assembly and Senate passed a compulsory mental health screening program for children and pregnant women is appalling.

The fact that it passed in the House with only five dissenting votes, and unanimously in the Senate is frightening. I wonder how the elected officials would feel about passing a law for compulsory ethics screening for political candidates.

Eileen Batson
Los Angeles, CA

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Mandate aimed at women and children is no accident

Abraham Lincoln would be appalled. The nation he united is under the severe threat of annihilation by a bio-terrorist predator so pervasive that our very future is at risk.

The Psychiatric/Pharmaceutical cartel has brainwashed the Illinois Legislature into funding their fraudulent practice of labeling children and adults with manufactured mental illnesses and then using mind damaging drugs to drive them crazy.

That this destructive action is aimed at children and pregnant woman is no accident. Once a child is labeled and drugged, that child becomes chemically dependent for life. Making woman of child bearing age take these damaging drugs will make her next child chemically dependant before the child is even born!

This is insane! The truly mentally ill are the profit motivated leaders of this destructive psychiatric/pharmaceutical cartel. Anyone who would destroy minds for profit is insane.

Note that these psychiatric criminals are not in Biafra, Uganda, or Somalia working to help people whose lives are really depressed. They are in Illinois and other wealthy areas for one reason only - that is the market where the money is located.

You are in a position to help stop this insanity by supporting any investigation by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. Please do so and help ensure we have a future in Illinois and the rest of the U.S.

Larry Byrnes
Pinellas County Florida

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Aussie sees America becoming Stepford- like

I'm an Australian who read your recent article about mental health assessments on the Internet; that is really scary. How do you Americans feel about this?

I've visited the States twice in the last 12 months, after having been absent for nearly 20 years. The reduction in rights (compared to 20 years ago) of privacy, mental health, parent's rights, etc., is alarming. You guys need to do something to rectify this. Maybe you don't notice it, because it has appeared to happen gradually, but I can tell you that when I visited recently I noticed it! There is a Stepford flavour to it all.

Catriona Ross
Melbourne, Victoria
Australia

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Commission is a front for Scientologists

In your article a few days ago about "compulsory" mental health screening, you cite the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. Many of your readers may not be aware that this group is a front for Scientology, a mind-control cult based in Los Angeles, California and Clearwater, Florida. They oppose everything in any way related to psychology, psychiatry, or drugs used for mental health, often exaggerating or misrepresenting statistics or the wording of legislation.

They're also a very dangerous bunch, which prevents me from giving you my name and city. A couple of my relatives were involved with them and managed to escape.

Name and town withheld

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Job security for the psychiatrists

I am strongly opposed to mandatory mental health screening for children and pregnant women. This is insanity! We are approaching a Third Reich system.

Correct the educational system and these trumped up "mental ills" will go away. This is another invention of the psychiatrists in the education system to insure their jobs.

Please continue the freedom this country was founded upon by allowing citizens to choose for themselves.

Fran Turner
Godfrey

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Psychiatry and their fictitious "math disorder" syndrome

Do we really want to drug all our potential future leaders? Do we really need more psychiatric fraud inflicted on the citizens of this country? I don't think so.

Psychiatry harms more people - men, women, children, and the elderly -- than any other medical practice. Psychiatry commits more financial fraud and has been investigated by the FBI. Psychiatric hospitals have an unrivaled history of patient abuse and neglect. Remember, psychiatry was started as a way to make soldiers more controllable in battle; it was never intended to help people. Psychiatrists have given us a legacy of electroshock, lobotomies, and mind-altering drugs as a panacea to the many fictitious syndromes they vote into existence, i.e., math disorder.

We must not allow free access to our children on the pretense of help. Take away their funding and demand to know what real results psychiatry achieves. The only things you will find are pain, suffering, and violence caused by the drugs they want more Americans -- especially children, to use. It is time to protect our families.

Neal D. Oxman
Columbus, Ohio

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Columbine shooter was diagnosed and drugged

As a grandparent I am outraged that the government has the right to screen children for mental illnesses. Who is to determine whether a child is depressed? What are the long term consequences of labeling these kids and drugging their developing brains? What subjective testing will be done? What if the child has a bad day and is feeling sad because something happened to make him/her feel unhappy? Will the child be diagnosed or misdiagnosed as a result?

If parents have no rights regarding the raising of their children, and the government determines who needs treatment and who doesn't, we are indeed living a police state.

Haven't we all felt a little depressed from time to time? What would have happened to us if we as children would have been given psychiatric diagnoses? In light of the question of suicide for kids put on psychotropics, this law is even more catastrophic.

State Rep. Patti Bellock states that the Columbine shooting occurred because kids are depressed and suffer from low self esteem. Maybe she doesn't know that one of the shooters was in fact diagnosed and treated with psychotropics!

Shame on those of you who made this a law. Your children and grandchildren may be the ones to suffer.

Yvonne Kravitz
Port Jefferson, NY