That's either a weird strawman, or you missed the point of what "ultimate authority" means here. The question is who gets the final say in how the child is cared for - if the parent thinks that something is harmful to the child, and the state says it's mandatory, who gets final say?
You're right. Children aren't property. They're human beings that deserve protection. Sometimes that means protection from the state.
The state gets final say.
On most parenting matters the state has no opinion, or at least has the opinion "let the parent decide." But that delegation of authority does not mean the state has given it up. We the people have authority in the matter in how you parent your child. We will go to such lengths as taking the child away and raising it elsewhere if that is what's best for them.
People don't get to murder their children and get away with it.
Correction. "if we think that is what's best for them." Maybe it is, maybe it's not. It's kinda like the death penalty - the state can totally get it wrong, and mistakes have lifelong reprecussions.
> People don't get to murder their children and get away with it.
Again, this seems like a weird strawman. And like I implied before, balance that possibilty with the liklihood it's the state doing the murdering. I'd rather have a distributed system of parents putting a majority of their time and attention into figuring out what's best for their own kid -- rather than a bureaucratic state that's playing politics and influenced by lobbyists, deciding what's probably best for the majority of the kids.
> I'd rather have a distributed system of parents putting a majority of their time and attention into figuring out what's best for their own kid -- rather than a bureaucratic state that's playing politics and influenced by lobbyists, deciding what's probably best for the majority of the kids.
I would rather have the state disallow murdering children rather than each parent deciding for themselves if they should be able to murder their kid. Maybe you had great parents, but not everyone is so lucky. Sometimes parents don't do what's best for their kid. In those cases, it's better for the state to use their Ultimate Authority to intervene in the interests of the child.
Stopping people from killing their children should be uncontroversial.
You're the only one here who has said anything about parental authority overriding the murdering-is-bad laws that most countries seem to have. The state disallows murdering children in the same way it disallows murdering anyone else - via general laws that are nonspecific to parents and their authority over their children.
If you were talking about some other kind of crime where the state was claiming specific authority over the special case of parents' authority over their kids, then I'd understand why you brought it up. Like I said earlier. That's either a weird strawman, or you missed the point of what "ultimate authority" means here.
> Sometimes parents don't do what's best for their kid. In those cases, it's better for the state to use their Ultimate Authority to intervene in the interests of the child.
Except that what you're advocating for isn't intervention in just those cases. You're also advocating that the state intervene in cases where: the treatment is harmful to the child, and the well-educated parent knows it, but the state thinks it's for the best, and causes harm to the child. And you're justifying it by saying the parents shouldn't be allowed to murder their kid. Which is really weird logic.
If you want to replace "murder" with "beat" or "starve" or "sexually molest" or whatever else, feel free. Murder is not a special case. Parents do not have ultimate authority over their children. It can be easily seen through example in the real world.
> Except that what you're advocating for isn't intervention in just those cases. You're also advocating that the state intervene in cases where: the treatment is harmful to the child, and the well-educated parent knows it, but the state thinks it's for the best, and causes harm to the child. And you're justifying it by saying the parents shouldn't be allowed to murder their kid. Which is really weird logic.
I am not trying to advocate for, nor justify anything. I'm simply saying that the state does not allow parents free reign to do whatever they want to their children, simply because they're parents. Murder is an obvious example, but the state also disallows lots of other things. If parents had ultimate authority over their children, the state could not allow or disallow anything, because they would have no say in the matter.
Because that's completely outside the context of what we're discussing here. Because we were talking about who gets final say on medical treatments, and because I clarified with OP [0].
Sure, there's evil people out there. Though usually "I brought you in...I can take you out" seems like hyperbole. But child abuse is wrong for the same reason the same abuse towards adults is wrong. I'm creating a distinction, because the principle involved matters: is the state exerting authority over the bad action done to the child, or over the child itself?
> I am not trying to advocate for, nor justify anything.
You are explicitly advocating for that, and explicitly justifying it. "The state gets final say." "It's better for the state to use their Ultimate Authority to intervene." "I would rather have the state disallow murdering children rather than each parent deciding for themselves if they should be able to murder their kid." "People don't get to murder their children and get away with it."
• Loss of custody. The child is taken to state custody for protection if the parent is found of negligence. • Criminal charges. The parent may be charged with child abuse and neglect or even assault if it is proven that he or she has failed in providing the necessary medical attention for the child."
The state take will authority of both situations. I am not sure what the laws are regarding this where you are. HN is a globally accessible website, but discussions are generally US-centric. It wasn't outside the context, I was just not focusing on the very extremes. After you've interacted with this type of parent once or twice, it becomes very easy to identy harmful behavior. I do mean interact with parents that ended up losing custody over neglect. I hope you empathize more with the children stuck in these situations after reading some of the cases. I am not 100% sure what you are attempting to argue.
In my state becoming aware of such behavior and failing to report itself is a crime. I think the crime part only officially applied during when I was associated as an employee of a univeristy and teaching high schoolers. I know I had to do mandated reporter training. The law states every single state resident is a mandated reporter, but I am not sure about the consequences for residents.
The reason vaccination is not covered under this law is because there is it's hard to prove the harm of denying vaccines, in a legal way. There are plenty of people, especially healthcare professionals, that wish vaccination was covered under this kind of law. It is true in some states but not all.
"Results. Our search yielded 9 cases from 5 states. Most courts (7 of 9) considered vaccine refusal to constitute neglect. In the 4 cases decided in jurisdictions that permitted religious exemptions, courts either found that vaccine refusal did not constitute neglect or considered it neglect only in the absence of a sincere religious objection to vaccination.
Conclusions. Some states have a legal precedent for considering parental vaccine refusal as medical neglect, but this is based on a small number of cases. Each state should clarify whether, under its laws, vaccine refusal constitutes medical neglect."
https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/is-denying-medical-treatme...
https://reportingchildabusenj.org/#:~:text=All%20residents%2....
I mean, it's too bad that the Ninth Circuit had to specify that "a social worker and a police officer are not entitled to qualified immunity for investigating a report of a child crying by making a nonconsensual entry into a home without a search warrant or special exigency and coercing a parent to aid them in strip-searching her child." [0]
As I pointed out earlier - what happens when the parent is well-educated, and knows better than to allow some treatment for the child, but the state decides otherwise and forces something that harms the child? This is the risk which we run when we allow the state to have final say.
[0] http://www.familyrightsassociation.com/bin/caselaw/calabrett...
> You both are focusing on situations where the parent is abusive. I'm looking at situations where the parents are genuinely caring for the child
A(n ignorant) parent can absolutely genuinely care for the child, and yet abuse them with medical neglect if they've been brainwashed into thinking that (some) medical care is bad, even when it's not. That's what is being discussed here.
> As I pointed out earlier - what happens when the parent is well-educated, and knows better than to allow some treatment for the child, but the state decides otherwise and forces something that harms the child? This is the risk which we run when we allow the state to have final say.
I think the bigger question is which risk is larger, that the parent is right or a state employing experts. I'm sure both risks exist, I'm not sure both are even remotely as likely and thus as dangerous. [0]
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/12/26/oh...
Children aren't property. They're human beings that deserve the protection of the state. Sometimes that means protection FROM their parents.