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The Rights Of The Parent vs Protection For The Child

PLease read the first post and vote accordingly for all that apply.

  • Child is beaten repeatedly to the point of needing medical atttention

    Votes: 24 92.3%

  • The child is beaten, but not severely enough to warrant medical attention.

    Votes: 15 57.7%

  • The parents deal drugs out of the house the children live in

    Votes: 18 69.2%

  • The parents do drugs frequently(every day at least) and while their children are in their care.

    Votes: 14 53.8%

  • The child has a life threatening medical condition and the parent will not let a doctor treat it

    Votes: 20 76.9%

  • The child has a medical condition which degrades their quality of life significantly that the...

    Votes: 17 65.4%

  • The child has a medical condition which degrades their quality of life somewhat, for reasons...

    Votes: 6 23.1%

  • The parent frequently leaves very young(say under 7) children home alone for hours at a time.

    Votes: 16 61.5%

  • The parents do not feed the child enough to the point of being very undernourished.

    Votes: 24 92.3%

  • None of those situations.

    Votes: 1 3.8%
  • Total voters
    26
AGENT J said:
For those that voted yes on 5, 6, and 7

why do you feel religious rights take a back seat in this case?
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The liberties of a person to act based on error, is subordinate to the objective rights of a person. If someone believes that it's justifiable to deny basic medical car to their kid, then they need to have their children protected from them.
 
Paleocon said:
The liberties of a person to act based on error, is subordinate to the objective rights of a person. If someone believes that it's justifiable to deny basic medical car to their kid, then they need to have their children protected from them.
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so if my religion said that doctors are wrong and medicine is sin you would take my kid from me?
If my religion believed doctors are playing god and thats a sin therefore i dont see doctors you again would take my kid from me?

hmmm very interesting

who gets to decided when this is right or the child is at risk?

5, 6 and 7 have very different levels you are applying this to all of them?

Heck 7 is just about eye glasses or something like braces. Why have any religious freedom at all then for parental/child relationships?
 
Redress said:
Because it has nothing to do with the topic I am trying to create a discussion on.
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I won't go further down that particular topic.

I intensely am intolerant of children being abused. The problem with the topic you raise comes at the next level - who decides? Courts tend to be rubber stamps for agencies such as CPS.

There also are other areas of child abuse that are rarely discussed, such as child neglect, ie not supervising and training a child.

The actually controverted instances are when parents do not agree the treatment is best for the child or thinks one doctor and not another is right, when the one don't agree with has more clout or pull or is more conventional. That is different than "pray the illness away" - though people will try to define it that way if they learn the parents are religious people.

This history of the advancement of modern medicine is also the history of learning that prior conventional medicine was wrong, or even destructive. I could go on for lists of what was conventional medical care seen as not possibly harmful or claimed beneficial when it wasn't. Today's truisms are next years terrible mistakes. Simply, I don't think it is a clear cut black and white as your poll would tend to indicate.

Personally, I despise physical violence against children at any level, OTHER than I could see in extreme cases it coming to that involve a male teen if he becomes physically resistant or violent. I have really given much thought as to what age a child should left alone, for how long, or when allowed to be away from the home on their own about the neighborhood.

Where it more complicated is medical care issues. For example, there is no limit to how much medical care we would obtain for our children - but in many if not most circumstances we would decline/refuse "chemotherapy" and "radiation treatment" as we would for ourselves - and we could cite among the most respected medical studies, research facilities and licensed medical experts to back that up. And therein is where your poll runs into problems because medical facilities that make tens of millions a year on such treatment and doctors who make hundreds of thousands will furiously declare those are the only treatments to use. It is, literally, a trillion dollar money issue and money usually wins with government and courts.

Some of your questions call upon people making a decision upon generic platitudes and in some areas it isn't really either - or. Rather, it is who decides? When it comes to the medical question, who decides now is whoever has the most money in the game and at stake. That means parents lose.
 
joko104 said:
I won't go further down that particular topic.

I intensely am intolerant of children being abused. The problem with the topic you raise comes at the next level - who decides? Courts tend to be rubber stamps for agencies such as CPS.

There also are other areas of child abuse that are rarely discussed, such as child neglect, ie not supervising and training a child.

The actually controverted instances are when parents do not agree the treatment is best for the child or thinks one doctor and not another is right, when the one don't agree with has more clout or pull or is more conventional. That is different than "pray the illness away" - though people will try to define it that way if they learn the parents are religious people.

This history of the advancement of modern medicine is also the history of learning that prior conventional medicine was wrong, or even destructive. I could go on for lists of what was conventional medical care seen as not possibly harmful or claimed beneficial when it wasn't. Today's truisms are next years terrible mistakes. Simply, I don't think it is a clear cut black and white as your poll would tend to indicate.

Personally, I despise physical violence against children at any level, OTHER than I could see in extreme cases it coming to that involve a male teen if he becomes physically resistant or violent. I have really given much thought as to what age a child should left alone, for how long, or when allowed to be away from the home on their own about the neighborhood.

Where it more complicated is medical care issues. For example, there is no limit to how much medical care we would obtain for our children - but in many if not most circumstances we would decline/refuse "chemotherapy" and "radiation treatment" as we would for ourselves - and we could cite among the most respected medical studies, research facilities and licensed medical experts to back that up. And therein is where your poll runs into problems because medical facilities that make tens of millions a year on such treatment and doctors who make hundreds of thousands will furiously declare those are the only treatments to use. It is, literally, a trillion dollar money issue and money usually wins with government and courts.

Some of your questions call upon people making a decision upon generic platitudes and in some areas it isn't really either - or. Rather, it is who decides?
Click to expand...

The topic is about rights. It is entirely hypothetical. Let's try and keep it to that topic and not your usual ramblings on whatever...
 
There was a case in the UK of two co-joined twins. If not separated, they claimed both would be dead within a few years. But to separate them required killing one of them.

The mother's opposed that. In her view both should be allowed to live as long as they could, plus it not impossible before then new procedures could be learned - plus it is true that often doctors declare children or others can only live so long - and years and years later the person is instead still alive.

The UK court, however, took custody of both and ordered 1 child killed to save the other - so one child was killed.

I bring this up as this was a "medical" decision taken from the parent because the government decided it was morally superior and therefore had a superior power to impose its will to the point of killing her child for their morality.

Another example would be that IF a state declares a ZEF is "a child," defacto then that government could not only ban abortions but also could take total control of any pregnant woman even confinement and total control.

Giving the government POWER over parents won't necessarily go the way people think it will years or decades down the road. The government uses extreme cases to get laws they want giving it more power - and then apply that increasingly in every direction.
 
AGENT J said:
so if my religion said that doctors are wrong and medicine is sin you would take my kid from me?
If my religion believed doctors are playing god and thats a sin therefore i dont see doctors you again would take my kid from me?
Click to expand...

Ya, if you're (the general you) idiocy endangers the lives of your children, then they need to be protected from you, and you need to be punished if you cause harm to them.
 
Redress said:
The topic is about rights. It is entirely hypothetical. Let's try and keep it to that topic and not your usual ramblings on whatever...
Click to expand...


Granted, spouting platitudes demanding they be totally devoid of reality is your thing - and ultimately to some partisan or loyalty to authoritarianism decrees about yourself you want to make. But not everyone can't deal with reality and always instead just uses messages to declare loyalty as their ideological chanting. You may want the topic to be your rambling and pouting pointless platitudes. No reason for me to agree to that pointlessness. You certainly can limit yourself to meaningless hypotheticals with no relation to reality or current actual issues on the topic if that is the limit of your capabilities or interests.
 
Paleocon said:
Ya, if you're (the general you) idiocy endangers the lives of your children, then they need to be protected from you, and you need to be punished if you cause harm to them.
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again who decides this?
what level of danger do you swoop in?

like i said 5, 6 and 7 have very different levels you are applying this to all of them?

Heck 7 is just about eye glasses or something like braces.

Why have any religious freedom at all then for parental/child relationships?
 
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joko104 said:
There was a case in the UK of two co-joined twins. If not separated, they claimed both would be dead within a few years. But to separate them required killing one of them.

The mother's opposed that. In her view both should be allowed to live as long as they could, plus it not impossible before then new procedures could be learned - plus it is true that often doctors declare children or others can only live so long - and years and years later the person is instead still alive.

The UK court, however, took custody of both and ordered 1 child killed to save the other - so one child was killed.

I bring this up as this was a "medical" decision taken from the parent because the government decided it was morally superior and therefore had a superior power to impose its will to the point of killing her child for their morality.

Another example would be that IF a state declares a ZEF is "a child," defacto then that government could not only ban abortions but also could take total control of any pregnant woman even confinement and total control.

Giving the government POWER over parents won't necessarily go the way people think it will years or decades down the road. The government uses extreme cases to get laws they want giving it more power - and then apply that increasingly in every direction.
Click to expand...

You are being intellectually dishonest. The government ordering children murdered is different from the government ordering children medically treated.
 
Paleocon said:
You are being intellectually dishonest. The government ordering children murdered is different from the government ordering children medically treated.
Click to expand...

I am not being "intellectually dishonest" at all, since that was an actual case.

These simplistic polls do not deal in reality. They assume the doctor in question is 100% right and the parent 100% wrong - then ask "do parents have rights in that situation?"

In the case I cited, the UK court ordered a child "medically treated" and that child lived, where they claimed otherwise soon will die. However, they had to kill the other child for one of them to have a full life time. It is ON POINT. You just don't like the questions it raises.

Yet rarely is it that simple. Many medical procedures have negative side effects, are a gamble, and some have known long term devastating effects for which the idea is live today - but then certain to die tomorrow - medical practice.
 
Redress said:
What CPS actually does has nothing to do with the poll. The poll is hypothetical only. I realize what actually happens is far more complex.
Click to expand...

Well don't I feel dumb...
 
There are not just hypothetical issues. Some people want it so because they have an authoritarian pro-government ideological agenda.

In fact, this issue in terms of medical care most often now comes up concerning the trillion dollar per year for-profit cancer industry on the topic of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. On this topic, the government treats children not only worse than adults, but worse than dogs. A person may refuse chemotherapy and radiation therapy. A dog has an owner who might. But the child had no rights. In fact, the government will declare the child's opinion - even if an older teenager - is irrelevant.

The reason some want this ONLY a hypothetical question is because in that they assert the doctor the government sides with is 100% right and everyone else 100% wrong (even if other doctors) and everyone else including the child and parent irrelevant.

Yet it is not such an absolute. When a poll was done of AMA licensed MD cancer specialists of whether they would have their own family members undergo chemotherapy, over 2/3rds said absolutely not for nearly any form of cancer. Legitimate, highly respected medical organizations, specialists and bio-medical experts have condemned chemotherapy, even declaring it is more deadly than the cancers it is used against. Even in application, usually the promise of chemotherapy is that maybe you won't die quite as quickly, and instead will die terribly a bit slower.

It is not as simplistic as some want to make it.
 
It is sad that often - whether custody disputes in court, issues of child abuse or neglect, medical issues and so forth can be so difficult, so unique to each case, and often there is no good solutions, only a question of which option is worse.
 
joko104 said:
There was a case in the UK of two co-joined twins. If not separated, they claimed both would be dead within a few years. But to separate them required killing one of them.

The mother's opposed that. In her view both should be allowed to live as long as they could, plus it not impossible before then new procedures could be learned - plus it is true that often doctors declare children or others can only live so long - and years and years later the person is instead still alive.

The UK court, however, took custody of both and ordered 1 child killed to save the other - so one child was killed.

I bring this up as this was a "medical" decision taken from the parent because the government decided it was morally superior and therefore had a superior power to impose its will to the point of killing her child for their morality.

Another example would be that IF a state declares a ZEF is "a child," defacto then that government could not only ban abortions but also could take total control of any pregnant woman even confinement and total control.

Giving the government POWER over parents won't necessarily go the way people think it will years or decades down the road. The government uses extreme cases to get laws they want giving it more power - and then apply that increasingly in every direction.
Click to expand...

Has jack **** to do with the topic Please stick to the topic.
 
joko104 said:
Granted, spouting platitudes demanding they be totally devoid of reality is your thing - and ultimately to some partisan or loyalty to authoritarianism decrees about yourself you want to make. But not everyone can't deal with reality and always instead just uses messages to declare loyalty as their ideological chanting. You may want the topic to be your rambling and pouting pointless platitudes. No reason for me to agree to that pointlessness. You certainly can limit yourself to meaningless hypotheticals with no relation to reality or current actual issues on the topic if that is the limit of your capabilities or interests.
Click to expand...

Has jack **** to do with the topic. Please stick to talking about the topic.
 
joko104 said:
I am not being "intellectually dishonest" at all, since that was an actual case.

These simplistic polls do not deal in reality. They assume the doctor in question is 100% right and the parent 100% wrong - then ask "do parents have rights in that situation?"

In the case I cited, the UK court ordered a child "medically treated" and that child lived, where they claimed otherwise soon will die. However, they had to kill the other child for one of them to have a full life time. It is ON POINT. You just don't like the questions it raises.

Yet rarely is it that simple. Many medical procedures have negative side effects, are a gamble, and some have known long term devastating effects for which the idea is live today - but then certain to die tomorrow - medical practice.
Click to expand...

Has jack **** to do with the topic. Please keep to the topic.
 
joko104 said:
There are not just hypothetical issues. Some people want it so because they have an authoritarian pro-government ideological agenda.

In fact, this issue in terms of medical care most often now comes up concerning the trillion dollar per year for-profit cancer industry on the topic of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. On this topic, the government treats children not only worse than adults, but worse than dogs. A person may refuse chemotherapy and radiation therapy. A dog has an owner who might. But the child had no rights. In fact, the government will declare the child's opinion - even if an older teenager - is irrelevant.

The reason some want this ONLY a hypothetical question is because in that they assert the doctor the government sides with is 100% right and everyone else 100% wrong (even if other doctors) and everyone else including the child and parent irrelevant.

Yet it is not such an absolute. When a poll was done of AMA licensed MD cancer specialists of whether they would have their own family members undergo chemotherapy, over 2/3rds said absolutely not for nearly any form of cancer. Legitimate, highly respected medical organizations, specialists and bio-medical experts have condemned chemotherapy, even declaring it is more deadly than the cancers it is used against. Even in application, usually the promise of chemotherapy is that maybe you won't die quite as quickly, and instead will die terribly a bit slower.

It is not as simplistic as some want to make it.
Click to expand...

Still jack **** to do with the topic...
 
Redress said:
While certainly an interesting and worthy topic for discussion, it is also outside the realm of what I am asking. What I am interested in is where the line between individual rights and state control are drawn.
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Individual rights are those rights that the state allows you to have. CPS in any state is a powerful entity..
 
Northern Light said:
I used to work in CPS and the poll oversimplifies what exactly CPS does. For instance, there are many children who receive an adequate number of calories each day, but their food is not nutrient dense so they would still be considered starving/malnourished. If we visited a home where the children were otherwise okay, but all they were being fed was pasta with sauce and poptarts in the morning, we would intervene... usually when a teacher or community member speaks to the child and finds out they are not being fed well. However, such parents are not intentionally abusing or neglecting their children, so in those cases some parenting classes might be ordered to straighten things out.

In every one of the poll choices we would have to determine if it's intentional abuse or neglect, or just total ignorance that is the problem. Things like selling drugs in the home, doing drugs around children (which drug? state laws vary), beating them maliciously, letting them live in filthy environments unattended to... those are emergent situations and we would show up to the house with police to take the kids out and ask questions later.

As for medicine, that also depends. State laws vary, and people do have Federal protections. For instance, in most states it's not legal to treat a child's leukemia with anything other than chemo, radiation, or surgery. If you try to do that, you could be charged with child neglect. On the other hand, vaccinations, treating infections (even serious ones) have more leeway because there is evidence that many alternative approaches to disease have positive impacts. In a nutshell, if your child's condition is so bad that they need the ER (or might need it if action is not taken soon) and you don't take the necessary steps to ensure that it does not become dire, you could be charged with neglect.

Re: beatings and various kinds of abuse. Sometimes it is only one individual in the household committing these actions. That person can be charged and removed while the child remains in the custody of whoever is left, or placed with another family member outside the household. If there is evidence that other members in the household were knowingly complicit while a child was being abused in the home, then the child could be removed altogether.

I remember one case where a school called us to say that they noticed one of their students was losing weight rapidly and also had strange bruises on his body. When we contacted the family they said they were in the process of moving to a new home and couldn't accommodate a home visit, so we called the parents to our office for an interview. They were nice as pie, dressed really affluently, and spoke similarly. They said that recently their child had been clumsy while he had the flu and was falling all over the place, which explained the weight loss and bruising. You just know that when they have the perfect excuse that it's too perfect... so I was sent to their current house for a surprise visit during the day. There were no parents home, and a 5 year old who wasn't at school because he was taking care of a 14 month old infant. There were garbage bags everywhere, and on the counter top were rotting plates and dishes heaped high, with used diapers that had maggots in them and flies. The floors had obviously not been cleaned in ages, and the back door of the house was wide open because the door handle was broken. We took those kids then and there, and those parents went to jail.

It's always case by case. There is no formula of "yes" or "no", like the poll implies. Libertarians hate CPS because they only follow the controversial media stories, but every day there is real child abuse and neglect happening and if CPS didn't exist those children would be maimed or killed, either from willful violence or total stupidity.
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Controversial media stories? Yes indeed, thousands of them across this country. I wonder why?
 
Redress said:
This does bring up an interesting question though. You say you made your determination by comparing the cost/benefit. Where and how does rights weigh into it? A parent has some level of right to determine how a child is raised. When does that right become null and void in defense of the child?
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Well, while it would be nice to live in a world where we all had the right not to be hurt, that's not the world we live in. We live in a world where some level of hurt crosses a boundary and become criminal. A wife can cheat on her husband and hurt him tremendously but that's not criminal. That husband can beat his wife and his act is criminal and society will step in and try to address, punish, him.

The same applies with children - parents can be awful to their children but being an awful parent is not a crime. Physical brutality, of a level which a court decides is too severe, is a crime and the child must be protected from harm when that threshold is crossed.

So there clearly exist some boundaries between a parent's right to raise his child, even in an awful manner, and the child's right to safety or life. There doesn't exist a right to a better life or better home life that stands alone.

Physical punishment of a child, your #2 scenario, breaks down on philosophical grounds - some people believe in corporal punishment and others don't. Because we haven't crossed the line into threat of life or threat of permanent harm (punishing your child by burning their skin with an iron) the State has no business in picking one side of that argument and acting by removing the child. This principle is what I see when I look at the inter-racial marriage decision, Loving vs. Virginia. There have existed two forms of marriage throughout history - ingroup and outgroup - and the State chose one form and decided to prohibit the other form. It's not the State's business to pick favorites between two viable philosophies. Same with corporal punishment. There is a case to be made for and against. There are people deeply committed to each side.

Drug dealing parents. Again, not an ideal situation. Certainly poses a risk for the child due to violence which often accompanies this practice. Risk of violence though is not the same as certainty of violence. To remove the child here means that the State is acting on a probability. Maybe there is a case to be made here but I don't know the likelihood of a drive-by shooting for a drug-dealer's house. Does that happen to 99% of drug dealers? If it does, then the case for removing the child from a shooting zone is strong. I don't believe it is very common, but I could be wrong. Now we're left to contend with the fact that criminality is taking place in the house. Is that a sufficient reason to remove the child? When parents cheat on their income taxes, they're being criminals, but does that warrant a removal order? What goes on with drug deals is, at heart, a commercial transaction, but one which can't rely on police and courts to settle disputes, so those disputes are settled with violence. So the issue seems to be risk of violence and exposing children to witnessing it and possibly being harmed by the violence. Are children of drug dealers regularly killed in cross fire? I don't know. I'm presuming that the incidence of children being killed is very low. If this is true, then the simple presence of threat doesn't seem a sufficient reason to disrupt a family.

Drug use by parents. Lots of people have had to deal with this plus alcohol use and they survived. Certainly it's not ideal, but again, we're talking about using the awesome power of the State to destroy a family, so we should be using a high threshold for child removal orders and I can't see drug use by parents crossing that threshold.

Life threatening condition. As I explained above, I personally found this one pretty thought provoking. Parents can have a philosophy of life (say religion) and act on that philosophy in their own lives and bear the consequences and reap the benefits which follow. On what basis do we deny them the right to extend that philosophy to their children? I'm assuming that the parents in such scenarios are good parents, unlike the other situations, and this issue is one of conviction. The issue becomes who do we trust to have the "best" position - the parents or the physicians? I'm not aware of physicians having veto rights on all parental decisions, or more narrowly, on all parental medical decisions for their children. Now we're dealing with an even narrower issue - veto rights over life-death decisions for the child. Society entrusts parents with the care of their children. This sometimes means very hard decisions must be made. We don't give veto rights to physicians but now this seems to be a case where just that is being asked. Other than the child, who has most at stake? I'd say the parents. Who cares the most? Again, the parents. Who is best informed about the philosophy of the family? Again the parents. Who is best informed about medicine? The physicians. In an organization, the physicians would be staff advisers and the parents would be line managers. The buck stops with the parent. People have the right to refuse medical treatment. We allow parents to exercise that right for their children even if we, and physicians, disagree with the outcomes. Unlike #1 where the parents are likely to kill the child through direct action, #5 creates a situation where death isn't the goal being sought, the parents are praying for some form of salvation or believe that a greater harm arises from treatment. That fact that some people don't believe in the power of prayer is immaterial, the parents obviously do and they have final say. This is the only just and workable way to run a society - parents know better than the State what is in the best interests of their children. Lastly, I think that this is actually the most important principle, these cases of withheld medical treatment in life/death scenarios are very rare and so we shouldn't be setting precedent which allows physicians to have veto power over parental decisions.

Scenario #8 - being left alone is, by itself, not a horrible outcome. It's irresponsible, but by itself it isn't a tragedy. What's horrible is when bad things happen. So again we're dealing with an issue of probabilities. Northern Light made this scenario a bit more specific. If the home environment is dangerous or extremely unsanitary then we're dealing with probabilities which have a very high chance of turning into tragedy and this is neglectful parenting. This isn't a case where parents are choosing from a few ways of raising their children with their best interests in mind. Maybe that's part of the litmus test. Being neglectful so that your children face a real danger is grounds for removal but neglectful behavior which results in low risk doesn't cross the threshold.

Scenario #9 I sidestepped with appeal to school lunches but if pushed I'd probably revert to the reasoning in #8 - dying from starvation is in a different category than sometimes going to bed hungry. I've seen some pretty awful things in Africa, including starving children. Taking a child away from its mother is a pretty drastic step - hungry children still depend on their mothers a lot and I can't imagine that a full belly is going to be a fair trade for having one's mother kicked out of one's life. The better solution is to provide food to the family and keep it intact.
 
RiverDad said:
Well, while it would be nice to live in a world where we all had the right not to be hurt, that's not the world we live in. We live in a world where some level of hurt crosses a boundary and become criminal. A wife can cheat on her husband and hurt him tremendously but that's not criminal. That husband can beat his wife and his act is criminal and society will step in and try to address, punish, him.

The same applies with children - parents can be awful to their children but being an awful parent is not a crime. Physical brutality, of a level which a court decides is too severe, is a crime and the child must be protected from harm when that threshold is crossed.

So there clearly exist some boundaries between a parent's right to raise his child, even in an awful manner, and the child's right to safety or life. There doesn't exist a right to a better life or better home life that stands alone.

Physical punishment of a child, your #2 scenario, breaks down on philosophical grounds - some people believe in corporal punishment and others don't. Because we haven't crossed the line into threat of life or threat of permanent harm (punishing your child by burning their skin with an iron) the State has no business in picking one side of that argument and acting by removing the child. This principle is what I see when I look at the inter-racial marriage decision, Loving vs. Virginia. There have existed two forms of marriage throughout history - ingroup and outgroup - and the State chose one form and decided to prohibit the other form. It's not the State's business to pick favorites between two viable philosophies. Same with corporal punishment. There is a case to be made for and against. There are people deeply committed to each side.

Drug dealing parents. Again, not an ideal situation. Certainly poses a risk for the child due to violence which often accompanies this practice. Risk of violence though is not the same as certainty of violence. To remove the child here means that the State is acting on a probability. Maybe there is a case to be made here but I don't know the likelihood of a drive-by shooting for a drug-dealer's house. Does that happen to 99% of drug dealers? If it does, then the case for removing the child from a shooting zone is strong. I don't believe it is very common, but I could be wrong. Now we're left to contend with the fact that criminality is taking place in the house. Is that a sufficient reason to remove the child? When parents cheat on their income taxes, they're being criminals, but does that warrant a removal order? What goes on with drug deals is, at heart, a commercial transaction, but one which can't rely on police and courts to settle disputes, so those disputes are settled with violence. So the issue seems to be risk of violence and exposing children to witnessing it and possibly being harmed by the violence. Are children of drug dealers regularly killed in cross fire? I don't know. I'm presuming that the incidence of children being killed is very low. If this is true, then the simple presence of threat doesn't seem a sufficient reason to disrupt a family.

Drug use by parents. Lots of people have had to deal with this plus alcohol use and they survived. Certainly it's not ideal, but again, we're talking about using the awesome power of the State to destroy a family, so we should be using a high threshold for child removal orders and I can't see drug use by parents crossing that threshold.

Life threatening condition. As I explained above, I personally found this one pretty thought provoking. Parents can have a philosophy of life (say religion) and act on that philosophy in their own lives and bear the consequences and reap the benefits which follow. On what basis do we deny them the right to extend that philosophy to their children? I'm assuming that the parents in such scenarios are good parents, unlike the other situations, and this issue is one of conviction. The issue becomes who do we trust to have the "best" position - the parents or the physicians? I'm not aware of physicians having veto rights on all parental decisions, or more narrowly, on all parental medical decisions for their children. Now we're dealing with an even narrower issue - veto rights over life-death decisions for the child. Society entrusts parents with the care of their children. This sometimes means very hard decisions must be made. We don't give veto rights to physicians but now this seems to be a case where just that is being asked. Other than the child, who has most at stake? I'd say the parents. Who cares the most? Again, the parents. Who is best informed about the philosophy of the family? Again the parents. Who is best informed about medicine? The physicians. In an organization, the physicians would be staff advisers and the parents would be line managers. The buck stops with the parent. People have the right to refuse medical treatment. We allow parents to exercise that right for their children even if we, and physicians, disagree with the outcomes. Unlike #1 where the parents are likely to kill the child through direct action, #5 creates a situation where death isn't the goal being sought, the parents are praying for some form of salvation or believe that a greater harm arises from treatment. That fact that some people don't believe in the power of prayer is immaterial, the parents obviously do and they have final say. This is the only just and workable way to run a society - parents know better than the State what is in the best interests of their children. Lastly, I think that this is actually the most important principle, these cases of withheld medical treatment in life/death scenarios are very rare and so we shouldn't be setting precedent which allows physicians to have veto power over parental decisions.

Scenario #8 - being left alone is, by itself, not a horrible outcome. It's irresponsible, but by itself it isn't a tragedy. What's horrible is when bad things happen. So again we're dealing with an issue of probabilities. Northern Light made this scenario a bit more specific. If the home environment is dangerous or extremely unsanitary then we're dealing with probabilities which have a very high chance of turning into tragedy and this is neglectful parenting. This isn't a case where parents are choosing from a few ways of raising their children with their best interests in mind. Maybe that's part of the litmus test. Being neglectful so that your children face a real danger is grounds for removal but neglectful behavior which results in low risk doesn't cross the threshold.

Scenario #9 I sidestepped with appeal to school lunches but if pushed I'd probably revert to the reasoning in #8 - dying from starvation is in a different category than sometimes going to bed hungry. I've seen some pretty awful things in Africa, including starving children. Taking a child away from its mother is a pretty drastic step - hungry children still depend on their mothers a lot and I can't imagine that a full belly is going to be a fair trade for having one's mother kicked out of one's life. The better solution is to provide food to the family and keep it intact.
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I don't agree with all of that, but well thought out and expressed.
 
Redress said:
Has jack **** to do with the topic. Please keep to the topic.
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Then word our poll truthfully for what it asks "hypothetically?"

Is the government always right about what is best for children? Do not give any examples or reason for your answer.

___ yes

___ no
 
Damn! I was concentrating on the rest of the list so much I missed checking the first two. :(
I did check the last two.


Everything else Darwin will sort out.
 
Redress said:
I think we would all agree that parents have a right to raise their children as they see fit. I think we would all agree also that at some point the welfare of the child would supersede those rights of the parent. To use one example, if one or both of the parents are molesting a young child, the state can and should take that child away from the parent for the good of the child. However, many/most situations are not so clear cut. This poll will list out several scenarios and ask if the state should take away the child in that scenario. Assume for the purposes of this poll that in each case the state has investigated in depth, a judge has been consulted and the feeling is that the parent is not going to change whatever it is they are doing. Since some of these scenarios require a bit of explanation I will list them all here with the full explanation. Please vote for any scenario where you feel the state should take the child away from the parents potentially permanently.

1: The child is beaten frequently to the point of needing at times medical attention. That is broken bones, lost teeth, etc.
2: The child is beaten, but not severely enough to warrant medical attention. That is, hard enough to leave bruises and similar, but not broken bones etc.
3: The parents deal drugs out of the house the children live in and while the child is there.
4: The parents do drugs frequently(every day at least) and while their children are in their care.
5: The child has a life threatening medical condition and the parent will not let a doctor treat it for religious reasons. Maybe they prefer faith healing, or do not believe in doctors, or whatever.
6: The child has a medical condition which degrades their quality of life significantly that the parent will not let a doctor treat for the same reasons as 5. Examples: significant pain, illness with the potential to cause blindness or crippling.
7: The child has a medical condition which degrades their quality of life somewhat, for reasons the same as 5. Examples would be treating near/far sightedness, dental work, etc.
8: The parent frequently leaves very young(say under 7) children home alone for hours at a time.
9: The parents do not feed the child enough to the point of being very undernourished.
10: None of those situations.

Again, please vote for each of those you feel would warrant the state taking the children from the parents potentially permanently. Also please be patient while I type out all the poll options. It will take a couple minutes at least.

Option 6 was a pain to get down to the character limit...
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Very well drafted OP with well described scenarios. You get an A+!

I've already answered the poll but I'll ellaborate a little:

1: Absolutely, this is real harm being done.
2: Spankings and discipline is ok, but black eyes and stuff like that crosses the line.
3/4: It's possible that they can sell and do drugs without actually harming the child. So in and of itself no, that doesn't warrant it, but if the child is getting the drugs in any way, or the drug use leads to them violating the child's right in other ways, yes.
5/6: Absolutely. Every child deserves at least modest medical treatment for serious conditions.
7: No, could just be that their poor and can't afford minor treatments.
8: Iffy, but in and of itself, no. I don't think kids should be left alone, but it theoretically with the right kid in the right situation could work.
9: Take the kid away. Starving your kid is not ok.

Redress said:
Has jack **** to do with the topic. Please keep to the topic.
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Have you met Joko?
 
joko104 said:
In fact, the government will declare the child's opinion - even if an older teenager - is irrelevant.
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I agree with you that chemotherapy should not be obligatory, however it should be pointed out that some states do grant medical decision making rights to older minors.
 
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