From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 01:20:48 -0800 (PST)
To: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com>
Subject: Re: Market Failures, Monocultures, and Dead Kids (Oh My!)
In-Reply-To: <199703190047.AAA02484@mailhub.amaranth.com>
Message-ID: <332FAF09.CD3@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


William H. Geiger III wrote:
>    Alec <camcc@abraxis.com> said:
> >Not in every case do the parents have the right to determine what
> >treatment shall be performed or whether it shall occur at all. More often
> >than not the courts have allowed medical treatment for the child who is
> >not able to consent to such treatment for himself.

> A parent is the sole person who has a *RIGHT* to determine the welfair of
> their childern. You do not have that right, I do not have that right, the
> government does not have that right. To beleive that the government should
> "protect" a child from the beliefs of its parents is truly
> FASISTS/COMMUNIST/STATIST (pick you flavor they are all the same <G>).

As a person who was once a child in a very unhappy home (5 kids,
nobody talks to anyone else), I can testify that I would have been
willing at several points to take a chance with the State.

Would it have helped or hurt more?  I believe that would have depended
on knowing how much worse things would have gotten at home (some
homes get worse, some get better, some stay the same), and just how
bad it would have been under the State.  I think those are the issues,
but how are you gonna predict which is worse, unless you have some
real incriminating evidence against the parents?

On a related note, there's a valid point about the State raising
kids being not only unnatural, but leading to bad things preparing
the kids for a future statist society.  Just another factor as far
as I'm concerned, when the life and safety of a defenseless child
is in question.