I find much of what Marci argues here persuasive, but get stuck on the question of what constitutes abuse. If you are my age (let's just say over 55 to generalize the point) and grew up in a working class or lower middle class neighborhood, the norm was that kids got smacked around a lot when their parents thought they misbehaved. I don't defend the practice and didn't follow my parents and their parental cohorts example in raising my own children. But I wouldn't characterize all these parents as child abusers either.
I don't doubt that we know more about the consequences of child raising practices now than we did then and normative standards certainly change over time. But some of the older members on the list may experience some dissonance in having the environment we and our peers grew up in characterized as abusive. Alan Brownstein From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of hamilto...@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 2:35 PM To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: Re: Wisconsin convicts parents for denial of medical treatment Vance-- Literally hundreds of studies by psychiatrists and others have shown that there is a clearly marked tendency for abused children to have severe problems in adulthood, including substance abuse, likelihood of suicide, and difficulties with close relationships, among other problems. These are statistical studies that are the type routinely relied upon by, e.g., the insurance industry to set risk. Do you dispute this set of relationships? Of course, any one individual may not follow the trend, and, thus, the Ted Bundy example hardly disproves the tendency. Now, all of this is coming out of science, not voodoo magic, and if you have any regular contact with individuals who have suffered abuse, you can confirm this for yourself anecdotally. Essentially we are having the nature vs nurture debate, and of course both are important and relevant. But if there are ways to create better conditions so that we have fewer adults with problems, it is irrational for society to ignore those possibilities. With respect to where we started, this argument is hardly needed, right? Surely there is no question that the death of a child from a treatable ailment is a serious loss to society and should be prevented. And the way to prevent such deaths is to deter parents from permitting a child to die or be disabled regardless of the parents' beliefs. Marci -----Original Message----- From: Judith Baer <jb...@politics.tamu.edu> To: 'Law & Religion issues for Law Academics' <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Sent: Tue, Aug 4, 2009 10:09 am Subject: RE: Wisconsin convicts parents for denial of medical treatment Vance Koven wrote: Many more people than those who are on death row (of whom there are virtually none any more) suffered treatment that we might reprehend or say was or was tantamount to child abuse, yet did not become killers, rapists, etc. There is obviously something *else* involved in the equation that either has not been adequately studied or that Marci is omitting from her argument. Conceded, Vance. (I considered responding "yeah, yeah, yeah" but thought better of it.) But what if we change the topic from the causes of violent crime to the ways to stop it? Judy Baer _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
