Kentucky General Assembly 2020 Regular Bills (SB 116)
INTRODUCTION
The primary purpose of the essay is to address the Senate Bill 116 of the Kentucky General Assembly which was fronted by Senators, Steve West, Robby Mills(R), and C.B. Embry Jnr after honoring the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Junior. The Bill proposes the amendment to the existing Parental legal rights of the KRS Chapter 405. The Bill has successfully gone through the first and the second reading and was slotted for recommitting to the Judiciary on 15 April 2020. However, after going through various parental rights globally, I oppose the request to the amendment of Chapter 405 of the parental legal rights which are necessarily incompatible with the egalitarian justice. It is because it will develop parental autonomy over children by impinging on the essential rights of the kids.
BODY
Parental Rights Are Necessarily Incompatible With Egalitarian Justice
Quasi-Property
Just as the historic coverture law holds that any right of a married woman in the United States of America is on her husband’s hand, is the same way most parents globally have a right to their kid’s earnings and services as they believe they are their possessions. Even after prohibiting cases like surrogacy, some states have gone ahead permitting parents to transfer rights over their kids in a property-like manner. For instance, Parental autonomy has led to children being given up for adoption without their interest being considered. Additionally, by the rhetoric’s, parents, especially fathers have exercised autonomy over their children for far longer than the best interest of the kids. For instance, the recent surveys have depicted that most parents in our nation are exercising a mandate of choosing for their kids a specific religion to worship in. The Quasi-property mindset of most parents has been fought since the late 19th, and the reports from the National Survey of Families and Households still shows that close to 73% of the American students are worshipping in the religion affiliations affiliated to their Parents.
Displacement and Diminishing Self-determination
With the United States of America’s constitution and family laws empowering parents to have legal right over their children, most parents have exploited their autonomy over kids, thus displacing and diminishing the interests of kids. By physically and emotionally imposing their exclusive control, they objectify their kids. Parents in many instances have objectified their kids by regarding them in the perspective of things that can be used even for admirable purposes rather than as people who also have their agendas. The most form of objectification concept even in 47 out of the 50 states of the United States is the sexual objectification. According to journalists, children advocacy organizations, and psychologists, there are cases of sexual objectification in America, especially on girls have been soaring to greater heights. The American Psychological Association’s Report of the APA Task Force on the sexualization of young females, in their report, discovered that around 17,000-32, 000 young school going ladies are being sexually objectified by being exposed to the sexual content play games on the internet. Thus, if the proposed amendment to Chapter 405 by the Kentucky General Assembly is assigned into law, it will impose a lot of severe consequences to the children’s humanity and dignity as it will contradict the belief in the equality of an individual.
Desire-contingent goods
Normally, people succinctly recognize that the desire-contingent goods may contribute to an individual’s life developing well when such goods are truly desired, but lack of them will not necessarily inherently diminish an individual’s life that does not necessarily require them. However, the Parent’s Rights Protection Act of the Senate Bill 116 might empower parents the prerogative role of deciding for their kids what “desire-contingents goods” they can have or participate in. There are a large fraction of Pushy parents in the United States of America that have been coercing their kids into participating in desire-contingent goods against their will like participating in Saxophone and piano classes. As of the recent report by the International Music Products Association, more than 30% of American kids are being coerced into taking the Piano and Saxophone lessons against their will. The coerced imposition of “desire-contingent goods” on any kid is not desirable in the ordinary sense as it will never benefit a child, but instead, it will be beneficial to the parent whose main objective is to see his or her kid participate in a school band.
Exemption of Children by the State
Besides, the change to the KRS Chapter 405 will transcend the social way of most children lives, which include both their safety and health. It will lead to the nation exempting itself from crucial scope like the health issues of the children. Legalizing the Parental legal rights fully might just like in the past limit the access by the kids to particular health interventions initiated by the government. For Instance, when there was an outbreak of measles at the famous amusement park in California in December 2014, parental autonomy influenced the immunization call by the government. Most of the time the health measures like immunization of the kids in the U.S has been in the balance between the exclusive control of the parents over their kids and the importance to the public health from mandating the vaccination process. According, to our country’s paediatrics’ and clinicians, about 54% of the medics in December 2014 reported unwillingness of the parents for the government to immunize their kids against measles citing that it might have harmed their kids.
Irresponsible or Absenteeism Parents
Despite the changes proposed to the Senate Bill 116, it might still infringe on the rights of Children in various spheres of life. Some of the Court verdicts globally on the person who should have custody of a child has led to most kids feeling void as far as parental care is concerned. Compliance to the Parental rights Act in the United States has led to many children ending up being with irresponsible or absenteeism parents. According to the recent National Survey of Children in Nonparent Care (NSCNC) report, more than 3.9% of American kids are in home with absenteeism or irresponsible parents due to our constitution that has bestowed all custodian rights of kids to parents. It has affected the performance of most of the kids as they undergo more than one family transition as a result of family instability.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the autonomy of parents has been justified on both parent-centred grounds appealing to various putative interests of parents independent of the children’s rights and the child-centred grounds focused on the children’s need for protection. However, the parental legal rights have been abused to treat kids like their properties which have led to the diminishing and displacement of the interests of kids. Additionally, parental rights have led to children ending in Nonparent care homes as they can’t choose a parent to live with. Moreover, since the U.S constitution stresses that a child is not just a mere creature of the State, most children have been exempted from most health measures initiated by the government. Therefore, there is a need for the Senate to take a lot of considerations before Kentucky’s General Assembly’s Senate Bill 116 is signed into law.