Wednesday, July 13, 2011

He opened the Door!

I've long been fan of REMOVING children from bad households. And I don't mean ones where I disagree with their music, politics, or religion. I mean a place where mom or dad (or both) are drunks, druggies, thieves, repeat offenders of whatever stripe.
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But every time I suggested this, some liberal would tell me that I had NO right to tell someone how to raise their kids! Well, Dr. David Ludwig, a liberal doctor from Boston as far as I can tell, thinks the same thing. ONLY he wants to include removing kids from FAT homes.
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Should parents of extremely obese children lose custody for not controlling their kids' weight? A provocative commentary in one of the nation's most distinguished medical journals argues yes, and its authors are joining a quiet chorus of advocates who say the government should be allowed to intervene in extreme cases.

It has happened a few times in the U.S., and the opinion piece in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association says putting children temporarily in foster care is in some cases more ethical than obesity surgery.

Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard-affiliated Children's Hospital Boston, said the point isn't to blame parents, but rather to act in children's best interest and get them help that for whatever reason their parents can't provide.

State intervention "ideally will support not just the child but the whole family, with the goal of reuniting child and family as soon as possible. That may require instruction on parenting," said Ludwig, who wrote the article with Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and a researcher at Harvard's School of Public Health.

"Despite the discomfort posed by state intervention, it may sometimes be necessary to protect a child," Murtagh said.

But University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan said he worries that the debate risks putting too much blame on parents. Obese children are victims of advertising, marketing, peer pressure and bullying — things a parent can't control, he said.

"If you're going to change a child's weight, you're going to have to change all of them," Caplan said.

So a fat kid is at risk, and there is need of intervention. But a kid living with a crack whore mother and a gang banger, drug running father, is a Life Style Choice by his parents.

Yeah, and if I start beating my dog, and wearing a live mongoose on my head, I'll call it a religion and apply for tax free status.

What, what's that you say?

The suggestion is ridiculous?

Really?

Which one?!

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Schteveo

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

What if you do not buy the kind of clothes they want?
What if they walk down the wrong side of the street?
What if they drink the wrong kind of milk? Wait check this one off.

Isn't this what the Nazi's did?
You belong to a certain religious group, off to the showers.
You are not blond haired and blue eyedm off to the showers with you. This is a very dangerous road.

Bow said...

all of it is wrong.

Spider said...

Not so fast Bill. In my former career, i had the unfortunate opportunity to see many cases where i wish i had the ability to take kids away from their parents, simply to save them. It always amazed me to see how incredibily cruel adults can sometimes be toward innocent children. The Casey Anthony case in FL. being a perfect example, and only the other day, a 9 year old boy was (dismembered) by an "innocent looking" psycho in Brooklyn.

While i can understand the govt. having the power to remove kids, i also undertsnad that the govt. can't do anything right, so i'm sure the number of abuses and "mistakes" would be astounding.

IMO, getting married and having children should be "at least" as difficult as getting a divorce. That alone would change a great many negative things. I also believe our insatiably-greedy society is guilty when it comes to force-feeding kids (and us) a daily stream of harmful crap which they call TV commercials.

Also, living in a socialist country, for "certain ethnic groups" the more kids you have the bigger your welfare and food stamp checks will be. This creates a "baby industry". It's common in some groups to have males go around and knock-up several women they're not married to. Then, when those checks come in every month, the males simply go around and "make their pick-ups". ($$)

It's quite clear, very huge and basic changes need to be made to our society, changes that i seriously doubt any of us will see.

Percent of Births to Unwed Mothers by Race for Franklin County: 1988-1996

Year White (Black) Other Total

1988 17.8- 67.7 12.7 28.6
1989 18.7- 69.7 16.1 30.1
1990 19.0- 70.0 13.8 30.5
1991 19.9- 75.9 13.6 31.8
1992 20.7- 76.6 18.8 32.8
1993 23.0- 72.2 16.4 34.6
1994 22.9- 71.3 21.2 34.2
1995 22.8- 70.2 20.1 33.9
1996 24.3- 70.1 22.9 34.8

Anonymous said...

I too have seen terrible cases of abuse, but the disturbing part would be the governments Idea of what obese is.

BOW said...

obese depends on such factors as your voting record

DW- You are spewing Annie-type emails

BOW said...

I agree with Cowpill. I can only see some abuse by parents, who should be jailed, replaced with more beaurocrats with their own dangerous agendas. Child services often overreaches already. Nasty neighbors can make all sorts of claims. The kid in Brooklyn was taken by a stranger who probably could have posed as someone normal to get a kid or a dozen as a foster parent. Think about how many people investigated the criminal who took Dugan, and for years no one found anythngwrong. Then you have others whose lives are wrecked because someone makes false claims and the victims are made to prove their innocence rather than the fingrepointers having to show proof. What about kids who have medical conditions and the nosy neighbors just report the parents anyway?

It's just another symptom of the nazi nanny state that many of these problems arise and then some meddling do-gooder comes in to really screw things up.

As for the real criminals, they should be prosecuted and executed in the middle of Times Square and televised on prime time.

blue said...

take my kids, please

Schteveo said...

Bill, and All,
I get 'hacked' somehow this afternoon. I wasn't even home when those e-mails went out. I changed my password, that usually stops such crap.
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Cowpill,
we have two problems here. Hand-wringing libs who WON'T say raising a kid in trash, drugs, abuse is NOT a 'life-style'.

Second, (is a two-parter) the Foster Care laws are too loose and the adoption rules are too strict!

Any willing idiot (pervert, idiot or fool) can become a Foster Parent through the system. But adopting children is akin to shaving a male rhino's private parts! I've seen both of those systems at work and it is, to weep.

There's a reason for so many people in America, who can't have children of their own, going to Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia to adopt children. It's too expensive and too hard to get approved here. Many kids remain IN HOME, as the DSS / CPS folks call it, because there simply isn't anywhere to send them to get then away from the bad parents.

I think obesity is a hard sell. For one thing we can't assume that all obese kids are just badly fed. But in concept I agree with his idea of removing kids from parents who are raising kids who will just wind up as under-educated, under employed, drains on society.

And I understand, BOW, that the government would screw this up. But if we returned to things like they used to be, where private orphanages and adoption services took care of some of this WITHOUT 10 gub'ment officials needing to sign off, we'd have some place for these kids.

Spider said...

Well, it seems we all agree on one thing, the govt. is not the answer to this problem, or any other problem. In fact. the govt. IS the problem.

Oh, one thing i forgot to include in my previous post, something that just might go a long way in creating a safer atmosphere for all kids.

Anyone convicted of a violent or sex-related crime against a child should be summarily executed.