The State: ve know vat ees best

Some British parents are finding out that questioning the care given to your child is considered cause for losing said child to the State:

The mother of a 13-year-old girl who became partly paralysed after being given a cervical cancer vaccination says social workers have told her the child may be removed if she (the mother) continues to link her condition with the vaccination.

A couple had all six of their children removed from their care after they disputed the necessity of an invasive medical test on their eldest daughter. Doctors, who suspected she might have had a blood disease, called for social services to obtain an emergency protection order, although it was subsequently confirmed that she was not suffering from the condition. The parents were still considered unstable, and all their children were taken from them.

A single mother whose teenage son is terminally ill and confined to a wheelchair has been told he is to become the subject of a care order after she complained that her local authority’s failure to provide bathroom facilities for him has left her struggling to maintain sanitary standards.

No matter where you look these days, including the U.S., there seems to be growing disregard for the perogatives of parents when they come into conflict with the desires of the State. While there are certainly cases where a child needs to be removed from abusive or neglectful parents, this is an area the State should be loathe to enter into except under proven circumstances.

In the US, we have many parents who believe the standard battery of shots given to children in the first two years of their life have caused autism in their child. Will we reach a point--particularly under nationalized heathcare--where raising such concerns will be grounds for breaking up a family? What about those who question public schooling and the growing tendency of school officials to skirt parental authority on issues such as sexuality?

The State represents one thing: force. The employment of that force must be carefully constrained. Using the power of the State to remove children because of legitimate questions or refusal to agree to a viewpoint that should be open to discussion is simply inexcusable. Just as my rights end where another person's begins, the State's power to impose its will should stop at the door to my home, unless I have demonstrated misuse of the powers inherent in the sphere of the family. Having successfuly neutered the power of the Church in the public square, the State now has in its sights another rival sphere of influence: the family. One must begin to question where we're headed when the State trumps all other sources of authority.