Child Abuse and Neglect Laws
In the late
'70s or early '80s, a few of us from the DC area were fighting a bill going
through Congress called The Child Abuse and Neglect Act (CAN). All the pre-passage propaganda was in
full swing on the news broadcasts on TV and in the papers; horrendous cases of
children being burned with cigarettes, thrown in bathtubs of hot water,
starved, etc. etc. I also think
there were committee hearings replete with all the usual suspects –
Social Service personnel relating horror stories. Of course, the Act passed, and was
signed into law.
But before it passed, we got word from
around the country that individual states were setting up Child Abuse and
Neglect laws of their own, and establishing and/or strengthening the state
agencies which would eventually apply for the federal CAN grants when the law
passed.
In Maryland, our CAN state legislation
passed. We got hold of a copy of
the state list of criteria for abuse and neglect given to the schools (and
other organizations) so teachers could report cases.
It was the Neglect list which was so
disturbing. It was long and
contained things like "Child is shy ... child is angry ... child is not
dressed properly ... child misses school ... parents don't attend school
meetings ... and on and on like that.
Any one of those neglect criteria could be used to report parents. Once reported, a social worker and a
policeman could knock on your door and remove ALL the children in the house,
not just the one reported on.
Our original state legislation started
out by listing the occupations of people who were allowed to report: teachers, doctors, hospital workers,
that type of person. But each year,
when the legislature met, the CAN was added to, until it was anyone who could
report you and do so anonymously.
Also, those reporting were given legal protection; if the reporter was
proven wrong he could not be sued.
And once reported, even if proven innocent, a parent (parents) name was
put on a CAN list and could not be removed for a full year. This list was available to employers,
etc.
I've just run through this because I
have always thought the federal and states CANs were, if not the first, at
least some of the most important of the erosions of our Constitutional rights,
the right to be believed innocent until proven guilty, a right even mass
murderers are given. Not to mention
the God-given right to be left alone in the privacy of your own home. And the right to raise your children
without interference from authorities, excepting only those children sexually
or brutally abused in-house.
Joan
The above was received in response to
an email sent out concerning the piece Dateline NBC did on Friday, November 15,
2002, concerning Brian and Ruth Christine.
The Christine's children were taken from them by the Oregon equivalent
of child protective services. When
the Christine's refused to comply with the state's demands on them —
parenting classes and psychological evaluations (undoubtedly by state contracted
counselors) — the state moved to terminate the Christine's parental
rights. At this point, Brian
Christine moved in defense of his children and family, taking his children away
from the state of Oregon at gun point.
He saw no other recourse. He
and his wife obviously didn't have the money to fight the state of Oregon
(which the state counts on). The
Christine's were both convicted on trumped up charges: kidnapping state personnel (which didn't
happen), and stealing a state vehicle (when recovered, the vehicle had not been
damaged, nothing had been taken from it, it was left where it would be found
easily). They were found guilty and
sentenced to prison. The prosecutor
made a statement that is very telling.
He said that all the Christine's had to do to get their children back,
was play by the rules — the requirements placed on the Christines by the
state of Oregon.
The state of Oregon violated the
Christine's Constitutional Rights.
First of all, the Christine's children were taken from them without due
process, they were judged guilty until proven innocent. That violates the Constitution and Bill
of Rights. Secondly, parental
rights are God-given, inherent, irrefutable. Except in cases of proven abuse or
neglect, for the state to take children from homes as the Christine children
were taken, is a violation of a parent(s) God-given and inherent rights. Children do not belong to the state,
they are not "human resources" they are not "raw
material". Only when one
subscribes to the humanist
worldview (religion), does one believe such. For the state to regulate under this
worldview is a violation of the First Amendment prohibiting a state-sanctioned
religion.
Systems governance cannot tolerate or
accommodate dissension for the very simple reason that the system must
encompass and include all in the interests of creating and maintaining the
sustainable environment (earth in balance). By its very nature, systems governance
always devolves to coercion and force as a means to bring everyone into
compliance. The laws have been and
are being put in place to give the government the means to force compliance.
What happened to the Christines is but
one example of many. Just before
school started this year, home schools in California were notified by the state
department of education that home schools were illegal in the state of
California as the home school must be licensed but does not fall under the
private school laws. More recently,
parents in an Illinois school district were ordered to appear before the court
on charges they had failed to receive permission
from the local school district superintendent to home school their
children.
Many believe that unless you have done
something wrong, you have nothing to fear from the invasive provisions of these
"protective" laws.
Undoubtedly, that was one of the mantras touted when the Child Abuse and
Neglect laws were passed. Now
children are being taken from their parents without due process and too often
to the detriment of the best interests of the child(ren). The parents only crime is failing to be
a good subject of the state.
The sad truth is that absolute power
corrupts absolutely. This kind
of power in the hands of the government, who can only justify its existence and
expansion by seeking more power and authority, is to strike a death blow to the
freedom of the citizens.
Lynn
M Stuter
November 2002
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