🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <53m99i$pgl@noc.van.hookup.net>, opdi@netshop.net (Alleycat) wrote:

> In article <jam81-1010960631340001@dialup179.cc.columbia.edu>,
jam81@columbia.edu (Jake Minas) says:
> >
> >
> >I don't think anyone contends that sexual molestation is not nice.  But
> >spanking beyond (proper, or tolerable)  parenting methods?  What does this
> >mean?  The government intervenes and social services interferes with the
> >parenting relationship every time someone gets spanked?  If I had kids, I
> >imagine I wouldn't spank them.  But geez, if that were the standard of
> >physical abuse, government would be taking over tens of millions of
> >children.  
> >
> >Jake Minas
> >Spanking "survivor"
> >Columbia Law School
> >jam81@columbia.edu
> 
> What I find strange in this twisted society is that governments are
> talking about charging parents for such a silly act, yet no penalty
> is given to parents who injest drugs and produce kids with mental
> problems.  Look at the girl in Canada who had three children that were
> mentally damaged by drugs, and is now pregnant with her fourth while
> still injesting all of those drugs.  Kids should have the right to
> sue their parents years later, or someone should be able to sue the
> parent on their behalf, certainly for this reason -- but something as
> trivial as spanking?  How ridiculous! -- Alleycat

There is, by the way a decent rationale for *not* prosecuting junkie
mothers that has nothing to do with parenting "rights."  For example, in
Johnson v. State, 602 So. 2d 1288 (1992), the State of Florida tried to
prosecute such a mother under a section of the criminal code that
prohibits "delivery" of controlled substances to children.  After
rejecting that the transfer of cocaine through the umbilical cord
constitutes such a delivery, the Florida Supreme Court offered its policy
rationale:

"However, prosecuting women for using drugs and 'delivering' them to their
newborns appears to be the least effective response to this crisis. 
Rather than face the possibility of prosecution, pregnant women who are
substance abusers may simply avoid prenatal or medical care for fear of
being detected.  Yet the newborns of these women are, as a group, the most
fragile and sick, and most in need of hospital neo-natal care.  A decision
to deliver these babies 'at home' will have tragic and serious
consequences."

To me, one doesn't need to be particularly expansive on "parent's rights,"
or particularly "soft" on drugs, to endorse this rationale.

-- 
Jake Minas
Columbia Law School
jam81@columbia.edu