Updated with another video.
Updated with video.
Tenured University of Michigan classical archeology professor, Christopher Ratte, took his 7-year-old son to a Tigers baseball game at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan. He ordered a drink for himself and what he thought was a lemonade for his son. The reality was he had ordered a Mike’s Hard Lemonade, which is an alcoholic drink for his young son. Ratte said that he didn’t even know that there was such a thing as alcoholic lemonade. Check out this photo of a sign of the drinks menu.
A security guard witnessed the boy drinking it and the eventual result was this young boy spending three days and two nights in foster care. Before you jump to conclusions please read the details about this case below.
Read the rest of this entry »
Implicit or explicit in the arguments of greater government intrusion in families is that we can’t trust parents (e.g. the debate over homeschooling in California). Never said but always implicit in those arguments is that government can always be trusted with children without check.
When anyone says that we should abandon the fundamental right of parents in favor of the “best interest of the child” they are saying that parents cannot be trusted and government can.
Those of us that support the parental rights doctrine say that the presumption of trust should be with the parents. As a society we have always presumed that parents love their children and want what is best for them. As Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said in the Parham v. J.R. (1979) opinion:
The law’s concept of the family rests on a presumption that parents possess what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment required for making life’s difficult decisions. More important, historically it has recognized that natural bonds of affection lead parents to act in the best interests of their children.
…
The statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition.
I love that line, “repugnant to American tradition.” Speaking of repugnant to the American tradition, check out this video that highlighs the sad tale of government power intruding into the family: Read the rest of this entry »
The now famous California appeals court ruling has given many people the opportunity to ask a lot of offensive questions about parents and their ability to educate their children. Thomas D. Elias, a syndicated columnist certainly asked a lot of questions in his recent column.
His column starts off bad by accusing people of having a “knee-jerk” reaction to the ruling but it really runs off the tracks with this paragraph which follows quotes from the governor and other sources about the right of parents to direct their children’s education:
But pause for a moment and substitute the word “nourishment” for “education” in all this. Do parents have the right to provide as much or as little nourishment for their children as they like? If they don’t provide adequate nourishment, don’t they at some point become guilty of child abuse?
Who is claiming that, Mr. Elias? No one is saying parents have a right to abuse their children and no one is advocating that. It is insulting that you presume parents guilty in this way.
He goes on:
These questions lead to another: What about the rights of children to a quality education? Sure, many of the approximately 175,000 home-schooled California kids do get quality instruction from their parents. But what about children whose parents speak little English? What about those whose parents have less than a high school education of their own? How can they possibly be getting quality education in these circumstances?
Couldn’t all the same questions be asked about the California public schools? Why are parents the ones who are suspect but the state isn’t?
This line of thinking really goes to the heart of the question about parental rights. There are two legal doctrines at debate here: Read the rest of this entry »
Here is a good overview with background and details on the California case. It is written by Chris Banescu and published on the Acton Institute’s website. Here is an excerpt:
The totalitarian impulses of the court were further evidenced by the arguments it used to justify its decision: “A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.” As someone who has lived and suffered under a communist regime (I grew up in Romania), the “good citizenship,” “patriotism,” and “loyalty to the state” justifications have struck a little too close to home. These were precisely the kinds of arguments the communist party used to broaden the power of the state, increase the leadership’s iron grip on the people, and justify just about every conceivable violation of human rights, restrictions on individual liberties, and abuses perpetrated by government officials.
From the Capitol Resource Institute (and California!):
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in 2006 that the abortifacient drug “Plan B” was approved for over-the-counter use by women aged 18 years and older, CRI immediately criticized this action. One obvious negative point is that minors can easily sidestep the age requirement by having an older friend buy the drug for them.
But the reality is even worse than imagined. CRI was shocked and dismayed to discover through recent staff research that not only are minors able to access the drugs through older friends buying it for them, but it appears that on-campus health clinics are handing them out. And because many schools do not require parental notification when it comes to minors’ “confidential medical services,” parents are likely never notified that their young children are taking these dangerous, abortion-inducing drugs.
Our research revealed that, despite the FDA regulations requiring girls under 18 to obtain a prescription for “Plan B,” nearly 60 percent of California’s school-based health centers (SBHCs) provide emergency contraception to middle and high school students.
Each of California’s 64 SBHCs were contacted by CRI staff and we were able to speak directly with 41 of these clinics (a 64 percent response rate).
“It is an outrage that young girls are being helped by school clinics to sidestep FDA regulations that exist for their safety and protection,” Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource Institute. “This is an example of how so-called women’s health advocates are not so much interested in women’s health as they are interested in unfettered access to abortion.”
But don’t worry, I’m sure the clinics have the child’s “best interest” in mind when they give out drugs without parental knowledge or consent. Of course there would never be a real need for parents to be involved here when we know that the government really knows what’s best for kids.
Check out other topics related to health issues and the child-parent relationship from our blog.
Less than two weeks ago, a California appeals court declared in In Re Rachel L. that the vast majority of parents in California may only choose between public and private school because they are unqualified to teach their children. Tens of thousands of children in California are currently homeschooled, but this fact was unconvincing for these three judges, who boldly proclaimed that “parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” unless they are certified by the state to teach.
In so ruling, the court declined to follow the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder and its 2000 ruling in Troxel v. Granville, relying instead upon two antiquated lower-court decisions. The California court refused to recognize parental rights as fundamental rights (even though the Supreme Court did in Troxel), opting instead for the more lenient, pro-government standard of “reasonableness.” According to the court, homeschooling could not be a legitimate educational option because it would place “an unreasonable burden on the state to have to supervise each and every home in which a child was being educated.”
How do you like that? Read the rest of this entry »
You can read his column here on the recent California decision.
My favorite part of his column:
As our Founding Fathers swore to uphold these, so must we. Thomas Jefferson committed, “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” I know others would join me in rightly assuming that in our day “every” form of tyranny could also include publicly forced educational indoctrination. Friends, while you keep one eye on our national borders, you might keep the other on your state’s. If academic corruption is easily conceived in California, how long will it take to crawl to your state line?
My warning to such creeping companies of corruption is this: Best not to test Texas. If you thought we fought hard for the Alamo, wait until you see what we can do for academia. You can hide your sleaze behind No. 2 pencils, but our branding irons will find your tail sides.
“Every California child deserves a quality education and parents should have the right to decide what’s best for their children. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children’s education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts and if the courts don’t protect parents’ rights then, as elected officials, we will.”
This is very good but somewhat contradictory. I wish that second sentence was not in the statement because it seems to say that parents have rights as long as the government clears it first. It is identical to the approach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in that parents are free to decide as long as it lines up with what the government has cleared as in the “best interest of the child.”
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt considering how well stated it is in the first sentence.
