Relying on a theory of parental rights wherein parents control their children but are not subject to any explicit rights of the child “fails to strike a proper balance between the claims of parents to autonomy and the needs of children on the road to autonomy.” Maturing children will continue to resist their parents’ wishes, particularly where their religious beliefs and their need to assert intellectual freedom conflict with their parent’s interests. Minors recognize the arbitrary nature of the ‘potential adult’ standard on which courts …show more content…
Nebraska and Pierce v. Society of Sisters is no longer simply outdated, it is diametrically opposed to children’s best interests. Freedom of thought, intellectual and spiritual freedom, and education are essential to child development; we cannot produce conscientious citizens capable of recognizing and preventing abuse unless we provide all children with a place to grow and learn that embraces those fundamental freedoms. It is not enough to dangle one’s future rights like a carrot on a stick – children must be raised in the confidence that the rights of all citizens apply equally regardless of age. Denying children those rights by placing them in harsh, isolated environments deprives them, crucially, of the very tools they need to “survive and thrive” at the precise moment when they are desperately needed. By failing to protect children’s emotional and psychosocial humanity we remain in a precarious and morally culpable position of defending human rights violations on the basis of a hundred-year old decision to give parents unbridled …show more content…
As the medical profession, the national media, and the general public became aware of the shortcomings of available child protection services, the slow trickle of professional research about child abuse “became a torrent that continues to this day.” Combined with the pivotal passage of the 1962 amendments to the Social Security Act, this momentum led to the enactment of mandatory reporting laws in every state by 1967; subsequent reporting had a snowball effect, as it allowed Americans to see the pandemic scope of child abuse in the United States for the first