In Texas, a proposed cobnstitutional amendment would enshrine parental rights. But Bruce Lesley qustions if that would come at the cost of children’s safety.
In the world of public policy, children are often invisible, which is another form of neglect.
Even when the issue is about children and the laws we pass shape the course of their lives, they are left entirely out of the conversation. Nowhere is this clearer than in debates over “parental rights,” where sweeping proposals are offered in the name of “parental rights” but with little thought as to how they may affect kids.
In the United States, child welfare policy is governed by a pendulum – swinging back and forth between parental rights and child protection. Sometimes the swing is warranted. Other times, it becomes a weapon.
When the pendulum swings too far toward state oversight, families are investigated and wrongly torn apart. For example, splitting parents from their children based on poverty (i.e., “neglect”) has been disastrous for child well-being. And when this is combined with poor federal policy, such as the denial of the Child Tax Credit to those who need it the most and the inadequacy of affordable housing, parents are often pushed into poverty. For far too many families, the combination of these policies leads to family separation.
Yet, when the pendulum swings too far in the other direction, the child can disappear entirely from the picture and be placed in grave danger. In some cases, the state becomes not a protector of children but an enforcer of parental control, even when that control is abusive, neglectful, or life-threatening. In a shocking number of states, “parental rights” has even meant that even rapists and serious criminals can claim “care” and “control” over their offspring.
In states like Idaho, it has also meant that parents can deny their children life-saving medical treatment or that kids can be denied services from a suicide prevention hotline without parental consent.
In Texas, the pendulum is swinging the other way, and it has important consequences for children all across the United States. If Texas’s Proposition 15 is passed, it is likely to become a “copy and paste” act introduced in states across this country.
In Texas alone, cases are mounting – a 5‑year‑old tortured, a 9‑year‑old neglected after repeated investigations, a 4-year-old starved and beaten – all while being told the important issue is parental rights. These aren’t abstractions: they are children with real names, faces, and funerals.