Philosophy

[Bill of Rights]

OK.. I'm sitting here at work. "Untold Stories of the ER" is on, and a thought came to mind. The doc has a situation with a young boy who has been sick for a year or so. Long and short of it, the boy was a victim of his mother's condition, "Munchausen syndrome By Proxy" (MBP), and the doc had to report the situation and begin procedures to take the child from his mother. (The condition involves, among other things, the caregiver doing things that make the patient sicker, and the motivation includes more attention being paid to the caregiver.)

The question that occurs to me is that, as a man, a father, and a caring person, I don't want this child to be in this horrible situation, a victim of someone who he should be able to implicitly and completely trust, but as a strong libertarian, one who believes in as small a government as possible, I don't want to see government stepping in and taking the child from his mother.

The end result in this case was that mom was taken into custody and family members stepped up to take in the child. I don't see how this could be accomplished without government, short of someone making the ridiculous suggestion that the mother should simply be taken out back and shot or some such. While yes, the idea would make many of us feel better, that only satisfies "revenge", not justice.

We have discussed on here before situations where parental rights are overridden by courts, cops, or laws, but this is one that I think runs close to the line of an appropriate use of government and/or force.

I want to examine and consider these issues. I think, however, that I might be a little too close to it to see them with complete clarity. I want to understand where those of you who are also strong libertarians come from and what perspectives you have that might not have come to mind for me as yet.

Blessings,
Bill

 

[Steelman]

I don't want this child to be in this horrible situation, a victim of someone who he should be able to implicitly and completely trust, but as a strong libertarian, one who believes in as small a government as possible, I don't want to see government stepping in and taking the child from his mother.

Victim is the keyword in this situation. If there is a victim, and they are unable to defend themselves/remove themselves from the situation, they can only rely on their local gov't stepping in to help.

 

[88GT]

Some would argue that a child who was not given a particular form of medical attention is equally a victim. Not saying I do, but others here have argued as much.

I draw a line between causing direct harm through deliberate actions and the simple refusal to provide a particular kind of medical treatment for naturally-occuring conditions (maybe even accidental injury).

But my view of children is a rare one. And not really popular, even here amongst the libertarians.

 

[KLB]

I see your dilemma. I've known people that have had the government falsely cause them of abusing their children, and they can make people's lives miserable for no reason. This case involved someone questioning a very young girl at school about touching, and they led her to say that her father was sexually abusing her. He was found innocent, but only after being denied access to is child for a while if not supervised.

I also think that in cases where there is real physical proof of abuse, there should be intervention. I am glad that in the case you mentioned that the child ended up with family. I would have been saddened if he had been instead taken by the state. The child should be kept with family if at all possible.

Balancing the safety of the child with a burden of proof is a hard thing. One I feel should be weighted in the direction of the family. The 80s were especially bad where child abuse was concerned. There were witch hunts galore, many found to be also innocent later. Something the media was lax in reporting.

 

[rambone]

Victim is the keyword in this situation.

Yes. If the case is as described, it immediately fails the "No Victim, No Crime" test.

Some would argue that a child who was not given a particular form of medical attention is equally a victim. Not saying I do, but others here have argued as much.

I draw a line between causing direct harm through deliberate actions and the simple refusal to provide a particular kind of medical treatment for naturally-occuring conditions (maybe even accidental injury).

But my view of children is a rare one. And not really popular, even here amongst the libertarians.

This is the perfect place to draw the line in my opinion, after several debates and a lot of thought about it. Deliberately causing harm is a malicious use of force, and would be an appropriate time for intervention. However, opting out of mainstream treatments cannot, and must not, be classified the same way. This is the best possible rubric to follow for protecting parental rights as well as children.

This is all based on the assumption that the mother was purposely poisoning her child for selfish attention.

 

[dross]

The government has a legitimate and moral interest in preventing the initiation of force.

Parents are allowed to exercise some force against their children that wouldn't be legal if they did the same thing to another adult. In fact, many things that parents may legally do to their own children would get them put in prison if they were to do the same thing to another adult.

This only goes so far, however.

How far should it go? Unfortunately, there is no rock solid principle that defines it. A hundred years ago, a parent could do things to their children legally that would get their child taken away today, and they would be put into prison.

Force enters the equation in two ways here, in my thinking. The first is clear cut. If you initiate force that harms your child, the government has a legitimate and moral interest in intervening to stop you. What constitutes harm? I don't think that's an issue easily quantified with a principle. That standard might change depending on the state of the law. This is why we have legislators and not just a Constitution.

The other way to initiate force is through neglect. By its nature, a child is powerless. If you refuse to feed your newborn, you are not initiating an act, you are failing to act. Because you have control over your newborn and the newborn human cannot take care of himself, to neglect him and cause him harm becomes a type of initiation of force.

So, if your child cuts an artery and you believe that tourniquets will anger God, or you believe that tourniquet effectiveness is a myth perpetrated by a conspiracy between the medical profession and the rubber industry, so you don't use one to stop the bleeding, are you initiating force through neglect? I would say yes, if it's your child. (You have no legal obligation to help a stranger, but you have a special responsibility to your child because of the power you exercise over him.)

How about if you withhold a lifesaving drug? It gets fuzzier and fuzzier the farther we get from simple examples.

Principle doesn't answer every single question, it just helps to guide us to a solution that may change over time.

This is the problem with trying to develop a set of rules that are written in stone and must be applied to every situation.

I've actually heard the libertarian argument that according to principle, if you fall off your balcony and are hanging on to your rail, but don't have the strength to pull yourself back up, the only moral choice is to fall to your death rather than trespass on your neighbor's private property by dropping on to it to save yourself.

Principles must be constantly checked against reality, and it's principle that must give way, not reality.

 

[rambone]

I've actually heard the libertarian argument that according to principle, if you fall off your balcony and are hanging on to your rail, but don't have the strength to pull yourself back up, the only moral choice is to fall to your death rather than trespass on your neighbor's private property by dropping on to it to save yourself.

Whew, that's a stretch. I see nothing immoral about it if you ask the owner for forgiveness, and accept the consequences like a man.

 

[SmileDocHill]

You could also look at it without considering the whole "government is in the job of stepping in and taking your kids away" angle. What the mom did was criminal, from a basic standpoint, regardless of if it was her kid or not. Doing damage to another person is a problem. She got taken into custody (and should get time) and therefore the "taking of the kid from the mother" was really a secondary result of the mom no longer being able to be there. If she is in the slammer the kid needs someone to watch over them.
I know, I know, this is an over simplistic way of looking at it but in this case the mom is doing something (HARM) to another. It is a no brainer that her actions need addressed, and the kid would therefore need to be with dad if available or the state is in the position to find a next best option.

The philosophy gets trickier when the mom is being neglectful by NOT doing something. Like the several times a year I see a kid 3-8 years old come in with rampant decay, abscesses (infection), and with teeth that hurt on occasion. I give them a referral to a kids dentist, explain that it is a serious health issue regardless of whether there is pain or not, and that they are to call us if they have any trouble getting in to see them. (BTW usually a Medicaid patient so the treatment would be free to them) 6 months they come in for "cleaning and recall" no treatment is done. Repeat conversation, try to inquire as to why they haven't gotten anything done and the conversation dance ensues. 6 months later same thing.
I'm like BOR, I'm a libertarian in my convictions of how the gov. should be, but at what point is neglect pushing criminal and/or when should someone outside of the family unit be stepping up for the people that cannot do it themselves?

I like to think of it without considering the family at all. Think of the kid as an adult, if I saw serious medical issues but didn't tell him about it and even talked him out of treatment when he had complaints thereby letting things get WAY worse and do irreversible damage...no brainer, right? "No brainer" unless you really see your kids as just property and not having human rights that are (dare I say) defined by someone other than the actual parents.

 

[dross]

Whew, that's a stretch. I see nothing immoral about it if you ask the owner for forgiveness, and accept the consequences like a man.

What, you thought you invented adherence-to-principle-to-the-point-of-ridiclifiedness?

 

[rambone]

What, you thought you invented adherence-to-principle-to-the-point-of-ridiclifiedness?

Guess I've got some competition.

 

[RockofStrength]

What, you thought you invented adherence-to-principle-to-the-point-of-ridiclifiedness?

Ignorance of other options isn't sticking to your principles, it's just ignorance

If there was something quantifiable that would deliberately make the child sick (slipping something into his water or what have you) obviously you have a case there. If it is merely a matter of treating the child differently than we or the medical field would, I don't see that we have the right to do anything. If they think a magic dishtowel will come down and heal their kid if they don't get medical attention, so be it that's their right as the legal guardians of that child.

 

[Bill of Rights]

OK, finally got back to this. The case in question, the little boy had a central line (I think), which for those not in medical fields, is an IV placed in one of the larger veins in the chest. Typically, they are there for longer periods of time and are used for, among other things, chemotherapy. They're also useful for patients with really small or really fragile veins when frequent blood samples are needed. At any rate, mom brought the boy in with a stated concern that he was bleeding internally, into his stomach or intestines. They did a couple of tests, and the doc finally did one to test mom.. he proved mom was drawing blood from the central line and feeding it to her son. This in and of itself is not harmful, but it gives the impression that there's more going on than there is. The fact that she had him at the ED for a condition she knew she was intentionally causing is evidence enough that she was doing things that hurt him for her own reasons, however slight the pains were (an X ray, a blood test, etc.)

People have indeed had their parental rights overridden over spurious claims, and yes, in some cases, the errors were never corrected. People have had their rights overridden solely because someone thought a treatment should happen that the parents did not wish to allow. The line, as I see it, is razor-thin; An abusive parent (for example, one who withholds food as a disciplinary tool) who refuses to allow his child to be taken to the hospital for evaluation of an injury vs. a sick child whose parent does not believe in fill-in-the-blank treatment being done... say, Jehovah's Witness and their well-known refusal to allow blood products to be administered. In both cases, the child could die as a result of the situation, but when is it "going too far" to have government step in? Some people here have embraced the idea of minimizing government (I know I have); some have advocated its complete dissolution. Too, whose right is it to step up in the child's defense when those who have the responsibility to do so do not? Some, I'm sure, will say that it is anyone and everyone's right to do so, but our rights come from our Creator, and I don't see any place that that right is given (though it could fall into the penumbra of the 9A, I suppose.) Rather, perhaps I'm looking at the wrong word here. Perhaps it is not a right but a responsibility; again, though, where is this responsibility found? Cain is said to have asked, "Am I my brother's keeper?", and while the story tells that Cain was in fact his brother's murderer, the question holds. Our current laws place that responsibility on medical and educational professionals, among others, but we all know that our current laws are hardly exemplary of libertarian principles!

If a child is sent to bed without supper (withholding food as discipline), is this cause for the state to get involved and remove the child from an "abusive" home? Perhaps at some point it might be, if the child is denied food for some extended period of time, but that then begs the question... When is "enough"? One meal missed? One day unfed? If we say that it's somewhere in between those two arbitrary endpoints, is it missing one meal is OK, but missing two is too much? Or does the child have to miss all three? (any numbers can be substituted, I use these solely for convenience)
If a child might stay sicker, longer without a certain medication, is the parent abusive for not administering it? If a treatment is morally repugnant to the parent, but that's the exact treatment that the medical standard of care demands, where is the line drawn that the standard of care overrides the parents' choices? (and yes, I know these decisions are made by judges at this point. My questions are based not in "how it is" but rather in "Is 'how it is', 'how it ought to be'?")

We can really muddy the waters if we discuss the law criminalizing the attempt to end one's own life... if that life belongs to the person who is living it, is it or is it not that person's right to choose when to end it, and if so, is putting such a person into protective custody or signing an EDO (emergency detention order) a violation of his rights? And if the person does not own his own life.... who does?

Thank you all for the answers so far!

Blessings,
Bill