I saw Todd Solondz’s new movie, Palindromes, this weekend. Read about it — but don’t waste the ten dollars to see it on the big screen. The reviews give you what you need to know, and there isn’t much left in the filmic experience that isn’t already covered in thinking through its ideas on the page.
Given my interest in the right to procreational autonomy, the movie did present one issue that struck a nerve: a 13-year old girl/woman, Aviva, gets pregnant and her mother essentially forces her to have an abortion. Forget for a moment that the abortion leads to a hysterectomy that deprives Aviva of her procreational autonomy for life. What are we to make of parents who force their children to abort? I’m usually fairly suspicious of children’s ability to choose what is best for them. But my wife — who is a lawyer acting as a law guardian charged with the responsibility of making choices for and with children all the time — assures me that they are fully capable of acting in their best interests and that we should encourage them to make choices and live with them.
Later in the weekend, a father told me that our democracy will continue to fail and our citizens will continue to be uninterested in self-governance so long as we allow parents and schools to structure our children’s lives without empowering them to make decisions and live with them.
Thoughts?
Posted by Ethan Leib on April 18, 2005 at 09:49 PM
Comments
Ethan as a famous man once said “if you can’t say it right don’t say it at all!” and i’m saying this because well now i’ve never seen the movie but you kinda went of topic talking about that movie. Now back to the voting, kids should vote though it ould give them a good chance to show the world they can something better than adults:]lol lol lol lol lol. I said that because i know this man that gets so nervous that when he votes he picks the person with the shortest last name.
Posted by: caleb | Mar 12, 2007 8:58:03 PM
I agree with Ruchira. What I told Ethan, in full, was that though I did believe that most older children are capable of making moral decisions, this has mostly only theoretical significance. The true reality of most situations is that children are in too helpless of a position in society to deal with practical consequences of their decisions.
I represent children in a legal system in which the law attempts to straddle both the theoretical and practical aspects of a child’s decision-making ability, and succeeds fully at neither.
In cases where a parent’s actions cause her to lose her superior right to make decisions for a child, the state assumes the role of a surrogate parent. There’s a ‘standard’ which governs: ‘the best interest of the child.’
Further, the role of the attorneys who represent these children in Family Court matters is even more morally ambiguous. Law guardians, as we’re called, must act differently according to the age and maturity of the client. For a young child, a law guardian is encouraged to ‘substitute judgment’ and determine what is in the ‘best interest’ of the child, regardless of that client’s express desires. For an older child, who presumably has greater moral capacity to make decisions, the law guardian must advocate for that client’s wishes, even if the result desired by the client might be detrimental to the client. Who makes the decision about which category a thirteen-year old child might fall into? The law guardian.
Because the court makes the ultimate decision, once I stumble over that philosophical hurdle, the judge, acting as parens patriae, reviews my decision and rules according to this wacky, overbroad, and completely subjective standard, ‘the best interest of the child.’
Posted by: wife-o | Apr 20, 2005 2:24:32 PM
As far as I’m concerned, Ruchira has got Jean-Jacques figured out correctly. Supposedly Yogi Berra said, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.” That sums up my view of children’s autonomy — it’s a great-sounding idea, but if put into practice leads to disasters. I believe in giving kids prescribed choices: “Would you like a carrot or an apple?” rather than, “What would you like to eat?” Giving kids autonomy sounds nice, but it becomes harsher when you get to the forcing-them-to-live-with-the-consequences part. It almost feels like you are setting the kids up for failure when you allow them to do things that you, with the benefit of adult perspective, know will be bad for them.
The problem with a pregnant 13-year-old is that she has been put, too early, into an adult situation. That’s part of the tragedy. It’s also a classic dilemma (political theorist Bonnie Honig writes about these), in the sense that no choice she could make will be a “good” or “safe” one. That said, the idea that the grandparents would force the girl into an abortion she vehemently opposed is upsetting, to say the least. Pregnancy, miscarriage/abortion, and birth work enough assaults and indignities on the body even when they are sought out by an adult. To force a child to endure one of those forms of battery against her will (when she prefers another such form) seems downright abusive.
Posted by: Ariela | Apr 19, 2005 3:53:24 PM
A thirteen year old girl (not a woman, for sure) getting pregnant, is a sad event, no matter what the outcome of the pregnancy is. I will not address the issue of loss of procreational autonomy but just the matter of parental participation in deciding the fate of the pregnancy.
I am for empowering children to make decisions from an early age (as long as they call home regularly)- in fact, as early as the child starts to communicate verbally with others. Except for issues of health and physical safety, which a child may not recognize due to inexperience, parents and other adults ought to leave children alone for the most part. Pregnancy at an early age is a matter of health – physical and emotional, and it is wonderful if parents can discuss its implications with the child in a sane manner without climbing on a moral or rage filled soap box or better still, if they prepare the child not to get in this situation at all. A childhood pregnancy affects not the child-mother alone – particularly, when it ends in a live birth. I assume that most thirteen year olds do not have the financial or even the physical savvy to care for an infant independently. In most cases, the parents of the young mother will have to play a significant role in caring for her newborn. Harking back to Ethan’s logic of a man’s right to choose because he is responsible for child support, the grandparents’ predicament must not be dismissed lightly either, especially if they end up being responsible for both teen mother and her child for some years to come. As with all matters of life and death, this is an issue which is probably best decided on a case by case basis – depending on the parent-child relationship, the health and age of the pregnant child, the circumstances which caused the pregnancy, financial and emotional wherewithal of the family and much more. And adoption is always an option.
As for the fate of democracy and self-governance where children are denied autonomy, it has been a question for parenthood and pedagogy through the ages. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the most fervent advocate of children’s autonomy, believed that at the very instant of birth, we partake of the rights of citizenship. He argued that the education of a child had much greater far reaching implications for society than it had for the parents (who, according to actuarial calculations, will die before the child) and as such, parents ought to have a minimal role in shaping their children’s minds. Pathbreaking as his ideas were for educational philosophy, it is good to remember that Rousseau committed his own children to the orphange soon after their birth and in his old age, did reconsider his position on unlimited autonomy for children. In a perfect world, where we are all rational beings, parents and schools would prepare children to experiment, observe, ask questions and come to their own conclusions. They would act as facilitators and not repositories of all wisdom. But based on my own experience as a teacher and parent, I know that a bit of whip cracking is beneficial to child rearing. Also, it helps when you don’t lie to children about yourself and the world – the best training you can give is to teach them to keep their B.S. detectors polished and in working order through life.
Posted by: Ruchira Paul | Apr 19, 2005 2:07:44 PM
I proposed that 14 be made the age of full adulthood, in all legal senses, voting, drinking, contracts, driving, the death penalty, and my favorite, self financial support. That was a good landmark until the 19th Century.
It is also endorsed by nature, in making the individual fecund. As to maturity, that comes from experience and making mistakes. So the 50 year old is more mature than the 40 year old. By that measure, 80 should be the voting age. Indeed, much capacity progressively deteriorated after the teens.
That proposal gets unanimously booed by adolescents, including those in my home.
What they want are privileges. We can keep the burdens of responsibility.
Posted by: SupremacyClaus | Apr 19, 2005 1:59:14 PM
Ethan, if I’m not mistaken, Paul Peterson, a political scientist at Harvard, has advocated that children be given political rights at least so as to balance some of the rent-seeking behavior by the old folks in the country who send their AARP reps to fleece the young… There may have been a story in the Atlantic Monthly about this years ago. Here’s a link on why kids should get the vote. It cites Peterson’s study showing that the gov’t spends ten times as much on old poor people than young poor kids. http://www.youthrights.org/voteproposal.shtml
Posted by: Dan Markel | Apr 19, 2005 11:48:51 AM