The idea of having licenses for parenting has obvious appeal, which LaFollette clearly maps out. Yet, I am unconvinced that this is the answer to the issue of children being abused. The objections were well put but I do not think that he answered the second objection, that there is no reliable way to predict who will mistreat their children, sufficiently. I understand that it tends to occur that people who are abused as children are at higher risk to abuse their children. I am not sure, however, that he makes a strong enough claim between those two incidences to warrant restricting those individuals from conceiving. I feel that this is a huge leap to make on a possibility of abuse. I understand that the issue needs to be addressed but does it need to mean the child shouldn’t be born at all? Would it be more appropriate instead to mandate routine counseling and random drop-ins from child services to insure the child’s safety?
Another flaw in his argument lies within the fact that these customs are already in place within the application process of adoption. I concede that this is the case but it is not analogous to the situation he is discussing. He wants to stop children from coming into the world where as children up for adoption already exist. It is like the argument put forth a few class times ago. Does the abused child have a case when saying his parents never should have had him? No, but the adopted child does have the right to say he was wronged when being placed in an abusive family because there is another option. I understand LaFollette’s want to prevent abuse but stopping children from coming into existence is not the way to do so.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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