"Parental Rights" is Code for Child Abuse

[Nevilledog]

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Jill Filipovic
@JillFilipovic
During Judge Jackson's confirmation hearing, Sen. Marsha Blackburn took the opportunity to accuse her of trampling "parental rights." But here's the thing: In conservative circles, "parental rights" is code for the right of adults to abuse children.

jill.substack.com
"Parental Rights" is Code for Child Abuse
Don't trust conservatives who pit children against adults.
10:02 AM · Mar 23, 2022

https://jill.substack.com/p/parental-rights-is-code-for-child?s=w

The Senate hearings to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court are about as much of a circus as you might expect. Republicans whined that she sat on the board of a school that embraced diversity and inclusion and seemed upset that the school hadn’t banned books they dislike from its library. They claimed she was soft on crime because she extended a compassionate release to an old, sick man who had been behind bars for decades. They suggested she was overly lenient on child sex abusers. Ted Cruz did a whole presentation on racist babies.

It was a racist spectacle from start to finish. And it was a particularly shameful display because Republicans know exactly what they’re doing: By pushing the myth that Judge Jackson is pro-pedophile, they’re feeding into the QAnon conspiracy that claims Democrats operate a secret cabal of child sex traffickers that work in pizza restaurant basements and cabinets sold on Wayfair.

It’s nuts. It’s untrue. But it’s politically beneficial to the GOP to fuel the rage of a stupid, credulous fringe.

The senator who struck me the most, though, was Marsha Blackburn. She dug in on the question of “parental rights,” a conservative bugaboo that also fueled so much of the hostility to Hillary Clinton back in the 1990s when Bill was running for president. Conservative arguments for “parental rights” are one reason why the US remains far behind so many other developed and prosperous democracies on a range of issues, from education to health outcomes to really basic stuff like rates of child marriage and adolescent pregnancy. The conservative demand for “parental rights” has left millions of Americans kids under-educated; it has consigned them to physical abuse; it has denied them medical care. They have the audacity to impose laws that do such broad harm to kids and then claim the mantle of protecting them.

To be clear, virtually no one save for a handful of extremists believe that parents shouldn’t have the right to make a great many decisions about their children’s lives and wellbeing. The tension comes in when what a parent wants to do conflicts with the basic rights that should be afforded to any human being. These are pretty basic things: Kids, like adults, have a right to live without being physically hurt by anyone, but particularly by people who are more physically powerful than they are and have near-total control over their lives. Kids have a right to medical care that will protect or even save their lives. Kids have a right to a basic education — learning how to read, learning math — in part so that they can have some control over their futures. Kids have a right to live free of sexual abuse, and to spend their childhoods as children and not as wives or mothers.

*snip*

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Ammon Bundy is protesting for parental rights to "severely malnourish" children

https://www.wonkette.com/ammon-bundy-branches-out-into-let-baby-starve-protests-because-parental-rights

Bundy has a nephew called Moroni Bundy. I kid you not (though not the center of the protest, to be clear).

[cbabe]

2. Children protected in Violence Against Women Act

Posted yesterday in general discussion. Thought it bears repeating. Hope I’m not breaking any du rules.

Friend’s children were ‘kidnapped’ by vicious family court. He took his pain and did good.

He reported: The part I was lobbying for starts on page 305.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3623/text?r=2

Synopsis:

The United States Federal government passed the Violence Against Women Act which includes Kayden's Law, a law that puts the safety of the child first in custody cases that involve domestic violence. The law is named for 7 year old Kayden Mancuso, who was murdered by her father when she was forced to spend time with him.

Included in VAWA are prohibitions against keeping children away from protective parents for arbitrary amounts of time until children stop reporting being abuse. There is specific mention of not using reunification camps that use threat therapy to torture children to force them to stay with abusive parents.

Credit to:

Center for Judicial Excellence

https://centerforjudicialexcellence.org/

The National Family Violence Law Center

https://www.law.gwu.edu/national-family-violence-law-center

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/kaydens-law-kathryn-sherlock-violence-against-women-20220321.html?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=edit_social_share_facebook_traffic&utm_medium=social&utm_content&utm_term&int_promo

[Freddie]

3. I know of a case

Son of friends - evangelicals - were denied an adoption because they planned on home schooling, thus no mandatory reporters. Yay for New Jersey.

[TheBlackAdder]

4. Yep. They want to lock them in closets, kneel on rice, cane them, starve them, etc. for punishment.

[intheflow]

8. For punishment, but they'll claim they're saving the kid's soul.

[TheBlackAdder]

9. I thought that was reserved for unchaperoned sleepover nights at Pastor Robbie's house.

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

5. Children are viewed as property

And that view isn't limited to conservative circles either. It's culturally and legally ingrained in American culture to treat children as property rather than as autonomous beings that might have thoughts, feelings, and opinions of their own. Conservatives take the idea of "owning" children to another level though.

[underpants]

6. I had no idea there are that many child marriages

Over 13,000 a year. The woman’s story on the CBS link is horrible.

[Shrike47]

7. In my work as attorney for Child Protective Services, home schooling was frequently cover for abuse.

People who are abusing children frequently home school to hide the evidence. I participated in several cases where children were killed by parents and parent figures over periods of months and years. It’s given me a jaundiced view of home schooling and parental rights.

Of course, plenty of people who sent the kids to school abused them. It wasn’t exclusively home schoolers.