Many people pose the question: "Why should the government interfere with how parents bring up their children? After all, isn't it a parent's right as to how they choose to raise their children?"
One of the primary roles of government is protection of the rights of citizens, and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution promises equal protection under the law. But, if you are familiar with history, you are aware that true equal protection has evolved gradually. Looking back, we can remember times when certain citizens did not qualify as equal.
For example, wives used to be legally assaulted and battered by their husbands. It was referred to as a family squabble not domestic violence. These assaults were considered a private matter, trivial and a subject for comedy. The law did not presume to invade the sanctuary of the home and tell married folks how to manage their disagreements.
At an earlier time, apprentices could be physically punished by their employers, sailors could be flogged, prison inmates could be whipped by guards and military recruits could be beaten by their trainers. And at an even earlier time, it was standard procedure for field bosses to whip slaves working in the cotton fields.
All that has changed. Well, almost all. In the United States, at this time, there remains only one "whippable" class of citizen: children!
Hopefully, before long, the U.S. will join the rest of the civilized world in closing the legal loophole that allows assault and battery of the young. Thirty-one countries have already done so, and others are soon to join.
In 1989, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child was established to promote the legal rights of citizens under the age of 18. The only member nations not to have signed are the United States and Somalia.
What's our problem?
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For more on the issue of children and their rights, visit www.nospank.net
For example, wives used to be legally assaulted and battered by their husbands. It was referred to as a family squabble not domestic violence. These assaults were considered a private matter, trivial and a subject for comedy. The law did not presume to invade the sanctuary of the home and tell married folks how to manage their disagreements.
At an earlier time, apprentices could be physically punished by their employers, sailors could be flogged, prison inmates could be whipped by guards and military recruits could be beaten by their trainers. And at an even earlier time, it was standard procedure for field bosses to whip slaves working in the cotton fields.
All that has changed. Well, almost all. In the United States, at this time, there remains only one "whippable" class of citizen: children!
Hopefully, before long, the U.S. will join the rest of the civilized world in closing the legal loophole that allows assault and battery of the young. Thirty-one countries have already done so, and others are soon to join.
In 1989, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child was established to promote the legal rights of citizens under the age of 18. The only member nations not to have signed are the United States and Somalia.
What's our problem?
_________________________________
For more on the issue of children and their rights, visit www.nospank.net
1 comment:
Parental rights, as this concept is commonly understood, rest on flimsy legal and ethical grounds. This comes as a shock to many people, but not to anyone who is familiar with the incisive theoretical legal work of James Dwyer (and others). As Dwyer argues, issues arriving at the courts wind up in arguments over state power vs individual power and how to balance these competing interests. The children are left out in the hallway cuddling their teddy bears.
If I am an eleven year old boy awaiting the Oregon state supreme court decision whether I am going to lose an inch or so of my very sensitive and private anatomy, I would like to say to the court: please sirs, it is not my father's penis that is at issue here, it is mine.
Children have a moral right to be consulted and to have their wishes respected where it is reasonably possible to do so.
CONCLUSION of Dwyer paper on debunking the doctrine of parental rights.
"Consideration of judicial interpretations of rights in numerous contexts has revealed that the notion of parental rights is inconsistent with well-established legal principles. Rights protect only a right-holder's own person and property. No one should possess a right to control the life of another person no matter what reasons, religious or otherwise, he might have for wanting to do so.
Children are persons, intimately bound up with but nevertheless distinct from their parents. Supposed justification for parents' rights based on the interest of children, on the interests of parents, or on the interests of society simply do not withstand scrutiny.
These findings compel the conclusion that parental child-rearing rights are illegitimate. A better regime would simply grant parents a legal privilege to care for and make decisions on behalf of their children in ways that are not contrary to the children's temporal interests. Children themselves should possess whatever rights are necessary to protect their fundamental interest in an intimate, continuous relationship with their parents. This includes the right to be insulated from any state interference that is not in the children's interests.
Courts should acknowledge the illegitimacy of the parents' rights doctrine and decline to recognize claims of parental rights in the future. The evolution of our social attitudes toward, and legal treatment of, children in recent decades would afford the Supreme Court an adequate rationale for departing from the rule of stare decisis 302 and for overruling Yoder and Pierce to abolish parental child-rearing rights.
Subsequently, courts would decide cases involving disputes between parents and the State over child-rearing practices based on the interests and rights of the children involved. This approach would encourage a more appropriate social and legal understanding of parenthood as a privilege conditioned on a parent's willingness to operate within limits defined by temporal well-being of her children. It would also foster recognition that children are distinct persons deserving of respect equal to that accorded adults, and not merely means to the fulfillment of parents' life-purposes."
Professor Dwyer's paper (condensed version) is here:
http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/dwyer2/ Dwyer paper excerpt
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