On Tue, Jun 01, 2010 at 08:18:58AM +0300, Boris Liberman wrote: > On 5/31/2010 7:29 PM, John Francis wrote: >> Wrong. For some number of years (exact number depending on where you live) >> they are citizens, but not yet fully fledged - they are minors. A minor >> does not have the right to vote, or to enter into legally binding contracts; >> a parent (or a legal guardian acting in loco parentis) gets to make those >> decisions. As such, it's the parents responsibility tp look after the child. > > John, when a child is born and, G-d forbid, dies for any reason - is it > an obligation of the state to actually find out why? If a child is born > do they immediately get their most basic right to actually live in this > country? If a child is born - is she or he protected by the state? > > If so, my argument still stands.
It's complicated. In general, the rights of the "state" (or country, here) are subservient to the rights of the individual. That includes the right of the presumed legal guardian of the child (the parent, typically) to make decisions that may, in some cases, be injurious to the well-being of the child. In particular it is quite legal for a parent to decline medical treatment for a child where such treatment would go against the religious beliefs of the parent. There have been a few (very well publicised) cases where the state has tried to intervene and force medical treatment on an incapacitated individual even though the legal guardians of said individual were opposed to this action (probably the most infamous case in recent memory in the USA being that of Terry Schiavo, but there have been similar cases brought in other countries). -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
