Do parents have the right to decide the ultimate fate of children?

Yes, children are absolute property.

1 (5.3%)

Yes, parents know what's best for their children.

1 (5.3%)

No, children are partially independent individuals.

13 (68.4%)

No, children are fully independent individuals.

4 (21.1%)

Total Members Voted: 7

[ladyattis]

I was listening to the news piece read on the FTL 02/02/07 episode and I'm a bit baffled as to why Ian thinks that parents have the right to condemn babies, which have no means to decide or think on their own, to a parent's religious beliefs. Even if the state did not exist, it would be still be common place for doctors to uphold their Hippocratic Oath [or to DO NO HARM], which would make their decisions in opposition to what many parents believe is right. Medical science is not guess work, medical science [and the other natural sciences] have exacting methods and procedures that leave little room for silly shit like homeopathy and New-Age [aka sewage] 'medicine.' If you want to do that stuff then don't call a medical doctor to aide your children, but when you leave your kids to the aide of a medical doctor, expect them to obey their standards and their rules, even if it offends you.

In the larger picture, the fact that many people today believe in homeopathy [aka snake oil] is a testament to utter lack of informative individuals that walk on this great clod of dirt we call Earth. If you think some juju juice is going to stop that cancer, think again. If you think that AIDS can be cured with harmonic crystals, kiss your ass bye bye. And so on. Only scientific reasoning, and scientific critical thought can promise you any sizable rate of success. The rest just promises you hope without any rate of success.

-- Bridget

[Jason Orr]

Do they have the right?  No.  Children are independent beings, even if they are not responsible.  The parent's task is to guide and protect the child to the best of his/her ability.  You may think other parents are doing a bad job, but you have no right to stop them.  Any system that could decide which parents were fit for raising their own children would be corruptible.

Do they have the power?  Yes, and I can't think of any way to prevent or stop that.  It's a biological fact that children are dependent on their parents.  Any system that would absolutely regulate the actions of parents would be corruptible.  The best we can do is provide incentives for good parenting, which is easier said than done.

It's a really tough question, but one we all need to consider as potential or actual parents.


***EDIT***

Above, when I described children as independent beings, it might be best understood in a political and not biological way.  Obviously children (babies in particular) are dependent in the way that they physically cannot feed or clothe themselves.  However, this does mean that they are owned; they are their own sovereign individuals even if they cannot understand that.

[ladyattis]

Do they have the right?  No.  Children are independent beings, even if they are not responsible.  The parent's task is to guide and protect the child to the best of his/her ability.  You may think other parents are doing a bad job, but you have no right to stop them.  Any system that could decide which parents were fit for raising their own children would be corruptible.

Yet if I'm a doctor, I must obey my oath. If you told me that I must feed your child poison, then I would disobey your order even if you firmly believed that some how the poison would save your child. When you pay a doctor to do his/her job, you pay for him/her to obey the oath as well. It's a total package deal.

Do they have the power?  Yes, and I can't think of any way to prevent or stop that.  It's a biological fact that children are dependent on their parents.  Any system that would absolutely regulate the actions of parents would be corruptible.  The best we can do is provide incentives for good parenting, which is easier said than done.

Simple, the parent does not own the child, they only own a wardship/stewardship of the child. If you abuse it, the community, anarchistic, minarchistic, or whatever has the moral right to intercede for the sake of the child. Even if it offends you.

It's a really tough question, but one we all need to consider as potential or actual parents.

I totally agree on that point.

-- Bridget

[Jason Orr]

Yet if I'm a doctor, I must obey my oath. If you told me that I must feed your child poison, then I would disobey your order even if you firmly believed that some how the poison would save your child. When you pay a doctor to do his/her job, you pay for him/her to obey the oath as well. It's a total package deal. ... Simple, the parent does not own the child, they only own a wardship/stewardship of the child. If you abuse it, the community, anarchistic, minarchistic, or whatever has the moral right to intercede for the sake of the child. Even if it offends you.

As you said, parents own stewardship of a child, and therefore if they break the implied obligation to protect the life of the child by requesting poison, that contract between parent and child is null and void.  The child is now as much the doctor's as it is the parents'.  And of course, it is immoral to kill anyone, so the doctor would be right in refusing it.  The parents have no right to demand the death of their child, especially at the hand of another individual.  Their privileges as parents are over the moment they aim to destroy or undermine the development of that child.  The parent may be the default caretaker for their child, but if they attempt to murder that child, that sovereign individual, they waive any rights they had as parents, for they no longer are fulfilling the role of parent.

[gandhi2]

Yet if I'm a doctor, I must obey my oath. If you told me that I must feed your child poison, then I would disobey your order even if you firmly believed that some how the poison would save your child. When you pay a doctor to do his/her job, you pay for him/her to obey the oath as well. It's a total package deal.

True, and by taking my children to your hospital, I'd probably have to agree to such a contract.  Whether homeopathy is or is not an effective is a moot point.  At no point is any outside agency allowed the force to override the decisions that are being made in the best interest of the child.  To allow this opens the door for further abuses of civil liberties.  Who decides what's best, most effective, healthy, etc, etc?  You'd have to have some Board of Health, Board of Child Health,  Board of Spiritual Learning, Board of Science Understanding, etc, etc...and this just leads us to further socialist tendencies, wherein the government or some similar agency is once again trumping the freedom of individual parents.

Simple, the parent does not own the child, they only own a wardship/stewardship of the child. If you abuse it, the community, anarchistic, minarchistic, or whatever has the moral right to intercede for the sake of the child. Even if it offends you.

I'm not going to agree, because of the semantics..."moral right" to me seems like an oxymoron.  Morality and rights are two different things, and contrary to the Republican's beliefs, government's role is to protect rights, not morals.  Parents must be allowed freedom of decision, from a legal standpoint, in order to do their jobs.  Morality can be decided after the fact.
As I've mentioned in the past, I believe all animals have rights to life, but only those who accept the responsibilities of these rights can do so.  I should not be compelled to take on the responsibilities of other life that is unable or unwilling to care for itself.  In the case of children, one might say that the parents created it, so they must support it...I might agree with this argument, but if you say that they have a responsibility to the children, they have a right to parenthood as well.  And no stipulations can be placed on them, as they are sustaining a life which has refused or cannot assume it's responsibilities.  Life cannot be property, but these extenuating circumstances revoke the standard traits of existence..the ward and caretaker environment has many of the same principles as property does.  Any entity has the ability to take over wardship of these individuals, the parent has more direct of a claim, and therefore any choices they make for individuals unwilling or unable to chose for themselves, apart from immediate harm to life and liberty, cannot be punished under legal terms.  It becomes a morality issue, but laws cannot prosecute parents who make unpopular or allegedly irresponsible decisions.

If you take away the genetic right to determine the fate of your offspring, it will destroy the entire concept of sovereign parenthood.  This is the essence of statism, and the statist response to why "it takes a village."  In the natural world, such poor parental decision are punished with the ultimate sentence: total death of the bad genes that made it come to pass.

Just more of the mindset that man is outside of the scope of evolution, and can ignore the rules thereof without paying the price.

As you said, parents own stewardship of a child, and therefore if they break the implied obligation to protect the life of the child by requesting poison, that contract between parent and child is null and void.  The child is now as much the doctor's as it is the parents'.  And of course, it is immoral to kill anyone, so the doctor would be right in refusing it.  The parents have no right to demand the death of their child, especially at the hand of another individual.  Their privileges as parents are over the moment they aim to destroy or undermine the development of that child.  The parent may be the default caretaker for their child, but if they attempt to murder that child, that sovereign individual, they waive any rights they had as parents, for they no longer are fulfilling the role of parent.

You can't have a one-ended contract, or an unsigned contract.  It's why there is no binding of civilians to the Constitution.  The parents may offer a contract, but it is never implicit.  Unless I sign some document saying, "I promise to always follow the advice of the modern doctors, or my right to parenthood is forfeit," you are not allowed to remove them from my custody.  I'm sorry.  It sucks, because there will invariably be parents who make bad choices...but that is no reason to butt into the affairs of other parents who are not acting maliciously.  People here are discussing choices as if death is imminent, or as if doctors always make choices that result in life.  It's not the case, I am the parent, and unless I signed some rights away, I can determine how best to deal with the medicine of my child.  This isn't murder...at worst it can be pegged as negligent behavior, and even there, it's an ambiguous definition.  Do you think that doctors who make split second decisions that turn out to be wrong and result in death should be prosecuted for murder?  If not, why is it that parents do not have this same right, or even more, as life-givers and caretakers and money-providers for their wards?

Who determines the role of parents?  Of husbands/wives?  Why do you think that anybody else but the individuals involved get to make these decisions?  I think anybody who would argue for force is walking down the slippery slope to hell...especially libertarians.  You just can't justify obstruction of parental rights without giving illegitimate power to some agency that in turn decides the fate of genetics.

I would say a possible solution to these problems is to allow some custodial rights to other family members besides just parents.  A grandmother or grandfather or aunt or uncle has some genetic connection to the children, and might make the proper decisions for children if abuse is involved.  And if they are informed, they would respond actively as agents affecting necessary changes.  The kids would be in hands that had some selfish reason to keep them alive, and nobody would be compelled to care for wards if they had no desire to do so.

Something to think about is if the parents want to pull the plug, who pays for the child's upkeep?  Doctors?  Private agencies?  Taxpayers?  Or the most likely...they will be forced to pay for it themselves.  Do parents have to pay for medicine that they can't afford, but will assure longer survival?  I think that all of these questions are tough, and require a dialogue, but ultimately, all options revoking parental rights are options of force.  It's far better that the astronomically rare cases where no family member will take an active role in ensuring a safe existence for the children to step away and let the wonder of Darwinism work it's magic.  No more of those genes, problem solved, and more responsible parents get to thrive.  Hurray.

[AlexLibman]

The way I sees it -- you get your right to life when you are born, and your right to liberty and property ownership when you become an adult.  The latter happens automatically at a certain age, or up to X years earlier if the kid passes some certification that would satisfy a jury in an emancipation trial.

The parents (or the guardians they designate) should be in compete control, with the government not having the power to interfere unless the child's right to life is threatened.  If your daddy likes to play doctor but doesn't do any substantial physical damage - sucks to be you.  He's the boss.  (Though the mother or other family members would be likely to enforce a stricter set of rules in their family contract, as I've discussed elsewhere.)  In addition to kids suing for emancipation, perhaps concerned individuals should be able to sue for adoption, with the kid and the jury both being required to agree in order for adoption to take place over the parents' wishes, but that's a very complicated idea.

As far as "decide the ultimate fate", that depends on what you mean.  It is possible to brainwash a child so deeply during the first few years of his life than he'll be your servant forever.  After they reach the age of adulthood, however, the children are legally free to leave, and if they do leave then the parents have no further legal authority. 

[Jason Orr]

The scenario was parents requesting the poisoning of the child.  The doctor is under an oath to promote health, and killing babies is therefore against that oath.  If the parents did not realize they were requesting poisoning, then they should immediately retract the request for poison upon being told that.  If the parents still insist that the poison be administered, having been told that it will kill the child, then we are now dealing with premeditated murder.  The parents are then no longer fit to be the caregivers for the child and it is right to take the child away from the parents.  An arbitration will undoubtedly result, in which any just arbitrator would side with the doctor.  Parents do not have the right to murder their children.

This is an unlikely extreme, however.  What are the odds that parents would go to a doctor and request that he/she poison their child?  This is such a black and white case of immorality that it is objectively wrong on the part of the parents to aim to kill their child and objectively right for the doctor to save the life of the child by not administering that poison.  It is not likely that such a case would result in the real world, in which the parents demonstrate so clearly their inability to care for a child.

The rights of parents are not inalienable.  In fact, "parent" can be defined in terms which do not include a genetic relationship with the child.  Adoptive or foster parents are completely unrelated to their children yet are still in all practical senses the parents of their respective children.  "Parenthood" is not a genetic relationship but a biological, transferable responsibility.  The parental "contract" is implied in the nature of the parent-child relationship.  Implicit contracts are typically unenforceable  by nature, but such a biological imperative, I believe, can be objectively defined because it is not arbitrary but observable in reality.  Parents possess stewardship or guardianship of their children.  This involves promoting the development of the child until that child is fully capable of providing for itself.  This guardianship can be given away, if the parent for whatever reason is unwilling or unable to fulfill the obligations associated with parenthood.  These obligations are defined by nature, not by culture.  They include food, water, shelter, and little else.  Guardianship, however, does not give the parent sovereignty over the child because as I mentioned before, humans are sovereign individuals from the day they come into being.  Therefore, the parent has no right to, say, bind his/her daughter's feet or force his/her son to play baseball.  They certainly can and do, sometimes even with the child's best interests in mind.  However, there is no right inherent in the parent-child relationship which by nature sanctions such coercive action.

Obviously this leads to a myriad other questions.  What constitutes child abuse, and how much does a parent have to abuse his/her child to have objectively waived parental responsibility?  Any rules for this ought to be defined objectively and should apply universally-- that is, to all parents, at all times, and under all circumstances.  The criteria by which I posit this should be judged should be the child's life.  All action that promotes the child's continued life is right; all action that endangers the child's life is abuse.  With this in mind, we are nowhere close to reaching a definitive method by which we can judge individual cases of abuse.  Is teaching a child religion abuse?  It could be argued that it impedes the intellectual development of the child, interfering with the child's notions of reality and reason, which would then inhibit the autonomous survival of the child.  If culture or social custom mandates that the child, for example, be circumcised, is it abuse to mutilate the child's genitalia? Such action could arguably promote the child's social growth and therefore promote the child's overall survival or reproductive success.

I don't have all the answers (If I did, I would have published an important book by now!), but I suggest that all situations that are only subjectively wrong, such as religion, be dismissed.  Religion may damage the child mentally, but it would not necessarily be permanent, and most people who insist on instructing their children in the ways of their religion would do so for the child's supposed benefit and not harm.  Those situations where indubitable harm to the child has been sustained should be examined more closely; if for example, parents choose to cut off their child's legs in an effort to discourage athleticism which could lead to serious injury, or perhaps more plausibly, if two parents beat, neglect, and/or sexually exploit their child.  These situations lead to serious, irreparable damage to the child that cannot be rationally justified.  The two criteria for abuse should thus be:

a)  irreparable damage
b)  lack of justification

Granted, this does not eliminate entirely certain gray areas, but it does give us a starting point.  Although male circumcision could be argued either way, it may not objectively and universally constitute as abuse.  This is a case, I think, which should be investigated further, and perhaps my little theory here ought to be adjusted, but at least this is a start.

If parents are to do their job better than they do today, it must be understood that:

1.)  Children are biologically dependent on their parents.
2.)  Parents do not own their children.
3.)  The "rights" of parenthood amount to no more than an implicit biological responsibility to promote the child's life.  This responsibility can be transfered to anyone, even people not genetically related to the child.

[ladyattis]

True, and by taking my children to your hospital, I'd probably have to agree to such a contract.  Whether homeopathy is or is not an effective is a moot point.  At no point is any outside agency allowed the force to override the decisions that are being made in the best interest of the child.  To allow this opens the door for further abuses of civil liberties.  Who decides what's best, most effective, healthy, etc, etc?  You'd have to have some Board of Health, Board of Child Health,  Board of Spiritual Learning, Board of Science Understanding, etc, etc...and this just leads us to further socialist tendencies, wherein the government or some similar agency is once again trumping the freedom of individual parents.

I agree, but socially if you harm another person, be it your kid or a stranger on the street, expect justice in kind.

I'm not going to agree, because of the semantics..."moral right" to me seems like an oxymoron.

Only if you reject moral realism. As for the rest of your response, I find it strange that you divorce morality from rights in that they are both logical corollaries of each other in that one cannot have rights if one has no morality to justify them.

If you take away the genetic right to determine the fate of your offspring, it will destroy the entire concept of sovereign parenthood.

Maybe because it's the end of "Nature's Hand" on human affairs?

This is the essence of statism, and the statist response to why "it takes a village."  In the natural world, such poor parental decision are punished with the ultimate sentence: total death of the bad genes that made it come to pass.

Not even close to what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is ensuring the life of each human being that causes no harm to another. A child just is, for lack of a better term, in such situations. Rarely do you get kids that resist treatment because kids are only obeying one reality: live or die.

Just more of the mindset that man is outside of the scope of evolution, and can ignore the rules thereof without paying the price.

Maybe because evolution is over for us? When we started making micro environments we ceased being party to any more adaptation and random mutation.


-- Bridget

[gandhi2]

1.)  Children are biologically dependent on their parents.

True.  And as dependents, they are not allowed full rights that adults are.  Not saying this is the correct thing, but it's the case.

2.)  Parents do not own their children.

Agreed.  Parents do, however, have parental rights...they have the trait of being parent, and therefore have the rights that associate with that characteristic.

3.)  The "rights" of parenthood amount to no more than an implicit biological responsibility to promote the child's life.  This responsibility can be transfered to anyone, even people not genetically related to the child.

No.  It's far more than this.  It's rights of stewardship, with the full power attached to it.  There are rights and responsibilities associated with being a parent, that are an extension of contract rights.  No other person on the face of the planet has ANY right to wrest control of children from valid custodians merely because the public FEELS that they're not doing the right kind of job.  Custody transfer should involve the child...if it can't make the choice, then some other agent needs to offer incentive to the parents who are unwilling or unable to care for them, preferrably this would be another family member.

Not even close to what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is ensuring the life of each human being that causes no harm to another. A child just is, for lack of a better term, in such situations. Rarely do you get kids that resist treatment because kids are only obeying one reality: live or die.

So long as it stays in this scope, I'm right there with you.  Nobody should harm another individual in this fashion.  But prior discussions have lumped in many non-immediate, ambiguously harmful things with such as this.  It's a dangerous road.  Can you link me to the particulars of the case you are discussing?  I can't imagine how a homeopathic remedy equates to poison, really.  Most cases of medical neglect occur when a House-esque doctor is so sure of himself, and arm-wrestles with parents to do the things he wants, sometimes at expense of life, others at expense of finance, most often, at expense of general well-being of the whole family.  Doctors aren't any more perfect than parents, and any good doctor should take input from the parents as well.  It's their ultimate responsibility to counsel(and there is a modern version of the Oath that reflects this shifting mindset in the community), and then allow patients themselves or wards to decide.  After all, they work for us, right?  Would a politician be respected if the public supported some law, and he rejected it, "for the good" of the constituency?

Maybe because evolution is over for us? When we started making micro environments we ceased being party to any more adaptation and random mutation.

Whether you agree with gravity or not, it still works.  You have to build fancy mechanism to overcome it, and you need an understanding of it, but the price of breaking the laws of gravity are evident.  Sustain your flight, or come crashing down.  The crashing down is becoming very clear, with poverty rates spreading, the inability to maintain food yield in the 3rd world, spread of disease and war, whispers of gloabl warming consequences in this lifetime, and more and more animals in the process of blinking out of existence.  What happens when we are no longer able to sustain the flight above the rest of the animal world?  What happens when the machine falls apart mid-flight, or a rock comes along and rips through the paper wings?  When we remove the inherent adaptability, relying solely on technology to lifts us up, we open ourselves to decimation in a changing environment.  Read Daniel Quinn...get past the talking gorilla, and he's got some solid theorems.  We can never abolish evolution, rather only temporarily escape it.  Only humans have such a conceit that they would presume that law of evolution, the law of gravity, or fundamental laws of physics are banished, merely because they had manged to build a contraption to ignore them for a bit.  Anyways, that's a rant for other threads.

I've got to apologize before hand on this debate.  I have immediate bias for parental rights.  I once had to tangle with the CPS, for something which was essentially as stupid as I slammed the door on a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses and my house was dirty and my kid had stripped down to her diaper for the fourth time that day.  Nobody, besides my wife or our immediate family, has the right to extract my children from me if I am not willing to give them up voluntarily.  There is an age the child can emancipate voluntarily, and any even remotely decent(or guilty) parent will try their damnedest to ensure a safe and comfortable life for their kids.  And this means that in very rare cases, there might be parents who cared enough to keep their kids, but not enough to care for their lives.  Like an incestuous child molester without any remorse, and the other spouse is in on the gig.  I think other options are available, but if no other family member cares to keep the genetic legacy afloat, and the parents aren't willing to transfer custody voluntarily, then those kids are the product of horribly bad genes and will have to suffer the consequences of the sins of their fathers so to speak.

[lordmetroid]

I have a very easy path of reasoning for dealing with parent-children relationship.

A child is the mother's property as long as the child is in the mother's womb, surviving by parasitic means from the mother. In the event of birth the child becomes it's own sovereign person. Neither owned by the mother nor father. Both the mother and father have then become equally trusted trustees to the trustor the child, trusted with the child's future interests. The trust was signed by the parents through the events of insemination by the father and birth by the mother. When the child has reached a conscious state of mind, the child can emancipate whenever it so wishes and release his parents from the trust. By doing so the child becomes a freeman tending all of his own property.

According to this reasoning the child is it's own property and I am trusted by the child to take care of his property until he announces he can take care of his own property himself. This outlines the basis of what restrictions a parent's authority has:
1) A trustee would not damage someone's else property if it would not benefit the trusted.
2) In a rational, scientifically researched, well educated opinion if one find it to not be a benefit to the trusted, it can not be done.

Therefore children are independent individuals with every right any other individual has. However they are unable to stand up to their rights and hence they have someone who is trusted to do this(parents). As a trustee you don't own the property but you are responsible for it. As a biologist specialized in molecular biology/biochemistry I do trust modern medical science. I don't trust the corrupt government that put special interests before my interests though. So the government shouldn't be forcing anyone to medicate.

If a parent is stupid and believe in humbug is better than modern medical science. I feel sorry for the kid, but I am not trusted to with the kids future interests. I would like to be but I can not see any moral justifiable  means to be. So the only way to help the kid is through education.

[Jason Orr]

While I agree that all children hold the right to emancipate themselves by their own free will, what if the parent brainwashes the child into dependency?  It shouldn't be too difficult to think of a situation in which abusive parents warp their child's mind so that said child would be unable to make a rational decision about emancipation; if the child is cut off from society, it is very likely that he/she would come to fully realize his/her rights as a sovereign individual.

[ladyattis]

Whether you agree with gravity or not, it still works.  You have to build fancy mechanism to overcome it, and you need an understanding of it, but the price of breaking the laws of gravity are evident.

Yet the reality is Evolution requires us to be exposed to a variety of climates and situations to ensure natural selection can operate. In fact my point was made by a scientist who's work was used by Stephen J. Gould. Apparently, the fellow, like me, thinks that when you are in control of your environment Evolution ceases to apply to you just as when in some far off future we learn to control gravity, it will not apply to us either. It's rather simple to understand. I think you just can't grasp that we have moved outside the domain of evolution just as some particles move outside the domain of gravity.

-- Bridget

[lordmetroid]

No, we have certainly not moved out from evolution. We rather than the surrounding environement have taken over the task of selecting. Society is selecting now unless there are some disease that needs to be battles like HIV.

[ladyattis]

No, we have certainly not moved out from evolution. We rather than the surrounding environement have taken over the task of selecting. Society is selecting now unless there are some disease that needs to be battles like HIV.

Not really, you have to understand that if your control your environment like us and certain other species, our evolution halts. In fact termites control their environments and have not changed in millions of years [nearly 100s by some counts]. They have not refined, they have not gotten smaller or bigger, they simply have not changed. It's pretty clear it isn't that trees are a great niche food, rather that their building techniques as part of their adaptation has afforded them, like us, little need of genetic variation or refinement.

-- Bridget