Abstract
Parental authority and children’s rights have been the subjects of many recent statutes and lawsuits. In early Greece and Rome, parents had absolute life and death authority over their children. And parents are enjoined in Ecclesiastics to “bow down” the children’s necks. Indeed, it was not until the 1960s that states passed child abuse and neglect statutes designed to protect children from their parents. Courts also have routinely required parents to provide lifesaving blood transfusions to their children, even over the religious objections of their parents, and proscribe the use of nonapproved drugs, such as Laetrile, on children. Nor can parents any longer withhold lifesaving medical treatment with impunity.
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References and Notes
Planned Parenthood of Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976).
Belotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622 (1979).
Parham v. J.L. & J.R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979).
See generally, Annas, G.J.: The Rights of Hospital Patients. New York: Avon Books, 1975, pp. 137–140.
Ibid., p. 138. Also see State v. Perricone, 37 N.J. 463, 181 A.2d 751 (1962).
Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 170 (1944).
Custody of a Minor, 1978 Mass. Adv. Sh. 2002, 379 N.E.2d 1053 (1978).
Custody of a Minor, 1979 Mass. Adv. Sh. 2124, 393 N.E.2d 836 (1979).
In re Hofbauer, 65 A.D. 2d 108, 411 N.Y.S. 2d 416 (App. Div. 1978), affd, 47 N.Y. 2d 648, 393 N.E. 2d 1009, 419 N.Y.S. 2d 936 (1979); also see Horwitz, E.T.: Of love and Laetrile: Medical decision making in the child’s best interests, Am. J. Law Med. 5:271, 1979.
In re Phillip B., 92 Cal App. 3d 796, 156 Cal. Rptr. 48 (1979); also see Annas, G.J.: The courts and Phillip Becker, Hastings Center Rep. 9:18, 1979, and Robertson, J.: Involuntary euthanasia of defective newborns: A legal analysis, Stanford L. Rev. 27:213, 1975.
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© 1981 Aubrey Milunsky
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Annas, G.J. (1981). Kids Are People Too, Sometimes. In: Milunsky, A. (eds) Coping with Crisis and Handicap. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3231-2_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3231-2_11
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