(Federal Law, Courts, Religion & Parental Rights)
Only a small percentage of child abuse is ever reported. Only a percentage of child abuse cases are ever investigated and only the worst cases of parental perpetrators of child abuse and death are ever prosecuted.
Jack Westman’s book DEALING WITH CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT AS PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEMS (page 70), posits that the leading cause of child death by injury is homicide. Hospitals report that 10% of critical child burn admissions are caregiver inflicted.
Child beatings and sex abuse by family members are almost never prosecuted.
Because the United Nation’s Rights of the Child Treaty of the 1980’s was not ratified, children have no standing in courts. A child cannot sue to have the abuse stop.
The U.S. is the only nation in the world to not ratify the UN’s Rights of the Child Treaty. Children today have the same rights women had in 1917.
At a Federal level in most States, children are property of their parents.
43 states allow withholding lifesaving free or affordable health care for religious reasons. Child marriage is still common in the U.S.
Child Marriage
New York just banned child marriage today (7.23.21)
American children are chattel like women were prior to 1918 – property of their parents or the man that wants them.
Teen brides do not have the maturity or critical thinking skills to protect themselves.
A combination of Federal law (no rights) and State’s rights means that child brides are forced to stay in abusive marriages. Just like in Pakistan.
The Imminent Harm Doctrine is the Federal Law governing the rights of a child in America. It allows judges to remove children from their homes if their lives are in danger of “imminent harm”. Many judges have a hard time overseeing these cases. Their law school training didn’t prepare them for the problems of family law and child justice issues. There are over 3000 counties in America – each with it’s own judges and interpretation of Federal law.
12 states have no minimum age for marriage with consent of parents. Many states have set the minimum age at 12, 13 and 14.
13 year old girls (under the age of sexual consent in all states) are often forced or conned into marrying 40 or 50 year old husbands. These child brides have no standing in court or rights to sue for divorce.
Thousands of young girls are married each year in America. Almost all of them to adult men.
Rock star Jerry Lee Lewis 13 year old bride still believed in Santa Claus. No parent should wish this on their child.
There are distinct differences in the criminality of nonfamily adults and parents for hurting their children.
Had anyone but Adrian beat 4 year-old Adrian Peterson’s child leaving scars and wounds they would be in jail.
Some judges rarely rule for the rights of a child in a birth home.
It doesn’t help that children have no standing in court.
Few other Industrialized nations bring the baggage of 500 to 1000 years year-old law and dogma to the raising of children.
Children are property of their parents until the child’s life is in danger of “Imminent Harm” when a court may remove them from the home – unless that endangerment is due to religion (as it is in many states).
RELIGION, American children experience needless pain and die because parents are legally allowed to let their children suffer by withholding safe and affordable (often free) medical treatments for religious reasons. It has been a common defense for parents whose children have died because they withheld life-saving medical care from their child.
From 2001 to 2018, the number of unvaccinated children grew by a factor of four – we assume the numbers post COVID to be higher yet.
What will this mean for COVID era babies and children parents withhold vaccinations from?
Average number of Americans that died from the flu;
from 2010 to 2017: 36,714
In 2018: 79,400
2021 (WHAT WILL IT BE POST COVID)?
Does an American child have any right to health and safety?
A One of the most child unfriendly religious acts in our nation is the refusal of the Catholic Church to allow gay couples from adopting State Ward children. The Supreme Court has recently made this into the law of the land.
The U.S. Supreme Court has recently decided that the church may reject gay couples and legally cancel all foster and adoptive services in communities that allow gay adoptions/foster care.
This leaves thousands of children stuck in overwhelmed Child Protection Services and fewer options for a safe home and any kind of a decent future.
Is this what Jesus would do?
Because foster care and adoption are a problem in every state ending any working program for placing children in safe, loving and caring homes is a cruel, anti child policy.
From a ground truth perspective, growing up gay is traumatic to start with.
Few LGBTQ people grow up without having experienced the anxiety, fear, depression and behavior abused children bring with them into their home. Their suicide and self-harm rates far exceed any other defined population.
The advantage that that gay couples bring to raising State Ward children is that they know what it’s like to grow up feeling alone, alien, worthless and frightened.
Having these lived experiences gives the LGBTQ community insights and understandings most of us don’t have and abandoned, traumatized children need.
It would serve the church and children well to view these issues through the eyes of a child instead of outdated dogma without concern for the children they are hurting.
If the U.S. were to ratify the UN’s Rights of the Child Treaty of the 1980’s, the religious exemption allowing children to suffer and die by withholding safe medical care would go away along with courts sending children back into homes to be abused and traumatized again and again.
This article from Slate in 2015 is still accurate today;
Forty five states—allow religious exemptions from vaccination. A similar deference to religion applies to all medical care for children…43 states give some kind of criminal or civil immunity to parents who injure their children by withholding medical care on religious grounds.,, Several states allow parents to use a religious defense against charges of murder of their child—and in some places they can’t be charged with murder at all. And even when parents are prosecuted, acquiescence to religious belief often leads to their being acquitted or given light sentences, including unsupervised parole. None of this, of course, applies to parents who refuse medical care on nonreligious grounds; those individuals get no immunity from prosecution.
Many American newborns remain untested and untreated for very treatable metabolic disorders, hearing and sight diseases & blood lead levels.
Some states allow religion to keep children from TB testing in school.
Several states let parents keep teachers from teaching their children about disease in school.
Some parents have killed more than one child by withholding medical treatment.
Just a few years ago, Kansas State Rep Gail Finney vowed to pass a bill that allowed caregivers to leave bruises and cause bleeding when disciplining a child (no age limit).
Arkansas State Rep Charles Fuqua promoted the death penalty for rebellious children (based on religious grounds).
Over the years KARA has reported on children dying because their parents withheld medical treatment because the church told them to do so. Some parents have killed more than one child by withholding medical treatment.
Some religions allow child neglect and abuse & some states allow a religious defense against charges of murdering their child – and “some can’t be charged with murder at all” (Slate).
Hard core State Legislators regularly create policy and introduce bills that allow violence against children in some form or other. Some of them pass.
It was just a few years ago America stopped executing juveniles. The Supreme Court recognized that children and teens committing horrific acts were capable of reform. Some of the judges realized that children and teens that do terrible things do so out of the trauma and terror they come from.
KARA reports on the issues of child abuse.
This article submitted by CASA volunteer Mike Tikkanen
All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children
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