thursday, October 5, 1978
page 4
daily nebraskan
opinioneditorial
Abused children deserve the same rights as adults
In the 19th century, institutional
living could be characterized as one
step above hell and one below pur
gatory, especially for children.
19th century literature such as
Oliver Twist and Jane Eyre explicitly
depicted the horrors of institutional
life. Children were expected to work
grueling, long shifts without pay or
adequate nourishment.
In those days no one gave a
thought to children's rights.
Times have changed. Working and
living conditions have gotten better.
But children's rights still are virtually
nonexistant.
Today minors have very little
voice in decisions that affect them.
Parents have the right to make cer
tain choices for their children, such
as what medical, psychiatric or edu
cational paths to follow.
The only time the courts step in
and provide protection for children
are when parents have neglected or
abused them.
Parents can commit children to
psychiatric wards as quickly as they
can sign their names on the dotted
line.
This is especially true in a private
institution. Children need not go
through a public hearing like adults
do. Assuming that there are no alle
gations of abuse or neglect involved
in the case, children can be locked
away, filled daily with depressant
drugs such as thorazine and stelazine
until they are 18.
These depressants commonly are
given to control children without
treating the root of the problem.
In a public institution a hearing
probably would be held before
committing a child.
History stemming from a long
line of U.S. Supreme Court cases
supports the fundamental rights of a
family unit.
Nebraska statutes deal with the
rights of parents. A statute still on
the books says that guardians and
parents are equally entitled to
custody, services and earnings of
minor children.
It's not a regularly enforced law,
but parents are legally entitled to
their children's earnings.
Children are not guaranteed due
process of the law or the right to
counsel, without their parents
consent.
If parents are fair and compassion
ate toward their children there is no
need for the state to step in. But
what about the children who don't
have such parents?
In 1977 there were 1,825 reported
cases of abused and neglected child
ren in Nebraska. Four-hundred cases
were reported in Lancaster county.
Teens subjected to bum throw of dice,
why do adults get all the legal breaks?
Two of us are sitting down today to
write about children's rights-or lack of
them. The phone has been ringing all day;
two kids in two entirely different set of
circumstances are in trouble. Neither one
of them is able to help himself. All of the
feasible ways to help them help them
selves have been exhausted, and all I can
offer at this point is support, and dubious
support at that.
michael zangari
Why?
Allison is just 16. Earlier in the week I
got a pathetic letter in the mail. It was
pieced together (including a home-made
envelope) on a rules and regulation
sheet from the mental ward of a local
hospital. By checking out the rules and
regs on the other side of the letter, I de
termined that the letter was smuggled out
of the ward.
"For Christ's sake, help. At least try,
I'm scared ..."
Allison had been trying to find out what
was happening to her for the past several
weeks. She knew that she was being forced
to see a probation officer (she thought).
She did not know what for. Family counse
lors, the court official and a public
defender had all told her to ask her parents
if she wanted to know what was happening
to her small and fragile world. Her parents
weren't talking.
Bodily force
For whatever reason, she really wasn't
surprised when she was pushed into her
room to watch as some of her things were
thrown into a suitcase, and she was bodily
taken to the hospital.
Allison has been periodically abused
a nice word for being beaten up. Her father
has spit on her, her mother has done worse.
Allison is being put in the hospital be
cause her parents can't handle her. She
doesn't come home until very late, if at
all. She smokes pot and she stays away
from school.
If she was out of reach before, she is
totally out of reach now. No phone calls,
no mail, and no visitors.
It is a public defender's opinion that
she has no rights at all. Cold, but deadly
accurate. She doesn't. She is a minor.
Case closed.
The right to due process would have
been very helpful here if she were older.
If she were older, she may have had the
right to privacy, and some semblance of
control over her personal life. If she were
older . . .
Dale is a year older. He is on the run
from a private home. His circumstances
were reamrkably similar to Allison. No, it's
not unusual.
Not bad person
Because Dale is running, he is a legal
fugitive. He has broken no laws to be con
fined, he has hurt no one, he is not a bad
person. Yet having to grow up on the run
is depriving him of school, making him
hard and cynical.
Why?
These two have the right to a normal
life. Somehow they were subjected to a
bum throw of the dice. They are no better
or worse than half the people 1 grew up
with. Most of them are in school now, or
working-a few as teachers, one as a
policeman.
"For Christ's sake, help," says Allison,
and after beating my head against the wall
for several days the question is no longer
why. I know why, and so do you. The real
question is how.
How can you help when every legal
right belongs to the adults in these cases9
All that is left is frustration.
Cry for the invisible non -people in the
world. Cry for the children.
Gmti"
front . n& fst&SOd ! if you
I C f
-fUfM t&t rsts ficeto Faff 1
Mi
These figures include both proven
and unproven cases.
Prosecution is unusual in abuse
and neglect cases, according to Linda
Wagner, resource mobilization agent
with Lancaster county.
Wagner's duties include informing
the public about child abuse and
neglect.
The number of cases that are
prosecuted are low, she said.
Approximately 20 percent of both
state and county abuse and neglect
cases are substantiated and prose
cuted. Parents have the right to choose to
work with protective services, which
are treatment programs, Wagner said.
Only the successfully prosecuted
cases are required by law to provide
any kind of protection for the child
ren. The goal of the law should not
be to break up families, but protect
children. Yet, children are only
considered chattle until they are 18.
There are cases before the U.S.
Supreme Court that question
whether parents are entitled to
commit their children without a
hearing.
It would not break up families if
children were guaranteed the same
rights as adults. It would only work
as protection for children's rights.
We can only hope that the
Supreme Court does decide that
there is such a thing as children's
rights.
letter
It is hoped that opinions dissenting the
ERA ratification would not be construed
to be reactionary and so sharply dismissed
by proponents, i.e. those dissenting
opinions against egalitarianism or the con
stitutional aspects of the ERA controversy.
Moreover, I suggest these two facets of the
ERA should be considered exclusive of one
another, thereby dispensing with applying
the social argument to the question of the
amending process. The comments made in
the Sept. 25 Daily Nebraskan did just what
should be avoided. The editorial vindicated
American women, but neglected the consti
tution which is the law for all of us.
Grover Rees notes the attitude the first
Constitutional convention had concerning
the amending process in his article When
the Voting Should Have Stopped, National
Review, August 18, 1978. This attitude our
founding fathers had was that a broad con
sensus would be necessary for amend
ments. Would it not reasonably follow, to allow
a state to rescind after previous ratifica
tion? This rationale rests, again, on the
necessity of broad consensus. If a state
changes its decision, it is not "united in
desire" with those who have not.
Congress has set the rule for the amend
ing procedure, and now those rules seem
intent on "greasing the skids" for the ERA.
'Six out of 35 states ratifying the ERA
make specific note of the time limit as only
a procedural impediment. Apparently the
state took it seriously.
Imagine a Congress setting such rules ot
amendment in the future for a constitut
ional amendment repealing the income tax.
Would the social equalitarians protest the
"insolence of office" as loudly as the
"reactionaries" supposedly do now9
Do possible consequences exist with the
actions taken to ratify the ERA9 Should
Congress have the power to write its own
rules here0 These questions transcend any
arguments on the virtues or shortcomings
"t the 1 RA itself. Mr. Rees ends his article
mentioning when ERA opponents do not
want the "'rules changed in the middle t
the game." Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
s. 'This is no game'" She is right, the
rt'P'iMk is at stake
Stanford L Sipple