Reconfiguring Child and Parental Rights: A Case for Coerced Contraception
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Reconfiguring Child and Parental Rights: A Case for Coerced Contraception
Charles F. Thurber, M.D., M.A. ABSTRACT: Flagrant child abuse and neglect touches community sensibilities and suggests the option of coerced contraception in dealing with irresponsible contraception. This idea is resisted by the notion that the right to reproduce is fundamental. Law and ethics uphold this right, seeing it grounded in privacy and bodily integrity. Gender, race and class issues also argue against the idea of coerced contraception. This essay challenges these traditional positions by constructing a case for coerced contraception from several viewpoints. On balance, the right to reproduce has considerably less legal and moral weight compared to the birthright of the child not to be harmed and to have an open future. Examined critically, coerced contraception does not represent an unusual or excessive burden. Strict scrutiny and due process issues are addressed in allowing coerced contraception to become public policy. Various objections to this thesis are anticipated and answered. These include, but are not limited to, the ideas that personal dignity and the physician patient relationship are endangered and that a slippery slope would lead to greater restrictions on personal freedom. KEY WORDS: Coerced Contraception, Reproductive Rights, Birthright, Child Abuse and Neglect, Due Process, Strict Scrutiny.
SEATTLE, WA—Mike is a 10-year-old boy who was admitted to the Children’s Hospital Emergency Room with multiple lacerations on his back, hands and face. Mike’s mother accompanied him to the hospital, Charles F. Thurber is Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Virginia. Address correspondence to Charles F. Thurber, M.D., M.A., University of Virginia School of Medicine, 1556 Stoney Creek Drive, Charlottesville, Virginia, VA 22902, USA; e-mail: [email protected] 459
Ó 2005 Springer ScienceþBusiness Media, Inc.
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CHILD AND ADOLESCENT SOCIAL WORK JOURNAL
and reported that the father had returned home drunk that evening. After learning of Mike’s poor grade in math that quarter, the father beat Mike with a coiled-up extension cord. Mike had tried to fend off the lashings, hence the lacerations on his palms. The looped marks on his back and face revealed the characteristic shape of the wire. Mike’s wounds were cleaned and dressed and he was released to the custody of his mother. His father was arrested in a bar later that night. Clinical Psychologist, 1993. MADISON, WI—The mother of a 9-year-old girl faces the possibility of 200 years in prison for treating her daughter as a virtual slave—beating her daily for months. A jury found the mother 27 guilty of 17 criminal chargers, 10 counts of child abuse, and three counts of false imprisonment. The child, now in a foster home, testified that she was tied up, beaten with a belt and a hanger, choked, slapped, pinched, stabbed with a pencil and burned with a hot pan. Much of the punishment, she said, was because she couldn’t cook and clean properly. Daily Pr
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