Comments on: Don’t Tell, Don’t Interfere, Don’t Legislate

By: Liz

Liz — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:20:25 +0000

I know that you are looking at this from a particularly Irish perspective, in terms of separation of church and state and powers of religious organisations. But looking at it here, from the UK, I can honestly say that I believe that much the same could happen(and probably is)here. Certainly I see nothing much changing in terms of protecting children from their parents/”trusted” adults since my 1960s childhood.
The problem once again comes back to children having no rights whatsoever.
The moral preachers forever talk about the rights of the child and wring their hands, but at the end of the day children are seen as the property of their parents and not as a present and future resource of society as a whole.

By: Barry McCrea

Barry McCrea — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:01:57 +0000

And because ordinary interactions and bonds with people outside the family have been put under automatic suspicion, “stranger danger”, even though the great majority of child abuse happens within the family. This means not only that the innocent are treated as guilty, but also that the safety net of people outside who might interfere has been disabled. The idea in the air is that children are the property of their parents, not members of society to whom we all have ties and responsibilities — this is the real problem with “family values”.

By: Green Ink

Green Ink — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:11:42 +0000

Health Board policy seems to be non-intervention until things are as bad as they can get from personal experience.