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V.
Why Repeal Is Not an Undue Infringement on Parental Rights
Why the Repeal of the Massachusetts
Religious Exemption to Medical Care for Children is Not
an Undue Infringement on Parental and Family Rights
Proponents
of religious exemption laws argue that repeal (the effects
of which would compel parents to obtain medical care for
seriously ill children) would be an unwarranted invasion
by the state of the basic right of family privacy and of
the rights of parents to raise their children according
to their own values and beliefs.
The boundary between parental freedom in child rearing
and the interest - or even basic rights - of the child
is unclear. The limits to parental decision making for
children are uncertain but it is widely accepted that
parents will generally make decisions that to not directly
threaten the welfare of their children.
Committee on Bioethics, American Academy of
pediatrics, "Religious Exemptions From Child Abuse Statutes,"
printed in Pediatrics, vol. 81, no. 1, January
1988
Children have rights too and parents have certain
rights which end when they intrude too far into a child's
right to live. A parents cannot act in such a way, that
is essentially, criminally negligent. And so the parent's
right to bring up the child in the way the parent thinks
best - an important right and one which government has
no business fooling around with, ends at the point at
which the parent's actions endanger the lives of kids.
National Office, American Civil Liberties Union,
1988
In 1944,
the U.S. Supreme Court in Prince v. Massachusetts
ruled that the State's interest in protecting the welfare
of children is significant:
The family itself is not beyond regulation
in the public interest, as against a claim of religious
liberty. An neither the rights of religion nor the rights
of parenthood are beyond limitation. Acting to guard the
general interest in youth's well-being, the state as parens
patriae may restrict the parent's control. Its authority
is not nullified merely because the parent grounds his claim
to control the child's course of conduct on religion or
conscience. The right to practice religion freely does not
include the liberty to expose the community or the child
to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death.
The Massachusetts
Supreme Judicial Court in Custody of a Minor (1979)
set forth the basic legal principle governing the rights of
parents, the responsibilities of the state and the best interest
of the child:
- …family autonomy is not absolute and may be limited
where…it appears that parental decisions will jeopardize
the health and safety of a child.
- Parents have the legal and moral obligations to support…and
care for their children's development and well-being…They
have the primary right to raise their children according
to the dictate of their own consciences. However…parental
rights do not clothe parents with life and death authority
over their children…The parental right to control a child's
future is grounded not in any absolute property right
which can be enforced to the detriment of a child, but
is rather akin to a trust, subject to a correlative duty
to care for and protect the child…
- A child may be taken from the custody of his parents
on a showing that the child is without necessary and proper
physical care and that the parents are unwilling to provide
such care. The essential inquiry involves application
of…the best interest of the child principles.
More
recently, in January 1991, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court In the Matter of Elisha McCauley ruled explicitly:
The right to free exercise of religion, including
the interest of parents in the religious upbringing of
their children is, of course, a fundamental right protected
by the Constitution. However, these fundamental principles
do not warrant the view that parents have an absolute
right to refuse medical treatment for their children on
religious grounds.
Rita
Swan, in her monograph, The Law's Response When Religious
Belief Against Medical Care Impact on Children, 1990,
wrote:
Some claim that repeal of religious exemptions
would give the state too much power to intrude upon family
privacy…The state should not mandate medical treatment
for trivial, self-limiting complaints. It should not mandate
medical treatment that cannot improve children's quality
of life or that carries risks which outweigh benefits.
Cultural and religious practices that differ from prevailing
community standards should not constitute a basis for
state action unless they present a specific threat to
the welfare of the child. The state's power should be
limited, but also evenhanded. All families deserve privacy
in certain spheres and all children deserve equal access
to necessary medical care. Repealing religious exemption
simply establishes a uniform standard.
This
last point concerning a uniform standard is absolutely critical.
There must be no legal double standard that subjects
the children of faith-healing groups to risks that are not
tolerated for any other child. All children are entitled
to equal protection under the law.
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