Who owns you? Who owns your children?

One of the tenets that one must hold if he is to be a believer in freedom and liberty is that a person "owns" himself. This is basically the inherent right of self-determination. I can choose what I do with my body and with my being.

Of course, self-determination, while an inalienable right, is one that has to be developed. While Lannom, my 7 month old, does not possess the cognitive abilities to make complex decisions for himself he still displays his inherent right of self-determination by crying when he is hungry and crawling towards items that grab his attention. Historically parents have been responsible for making the complex decisions of determination when children are not yet capable of making those decisions. An area you quite often see this happening in is health care. Parents make the decisions about what treatments and procedures are administered to their children because the children are not capable of making those decision themselves.

Problems occur when socially acceptable norms are not held by individuals. For instance, the Jehovah Witnesses have strong feelings about medical procedures and do not allow children to partake in some treatments. Society thinks that it should be able to step in and use legal force to protect the children from the decisions of the parents. There is the potential for an intellectual dilemma here for me. I believe in self-determination and I believe a parent's right to determine the course for their children should always override societies rights, with a caveat. No right can infringe on another person's right to life, self-determination, or right to property.

So, to a certain degree I believe that society has the right to preempt parental decisions when a child's life is in danger because it is morally wrong to take somebody's life through the use of force. A parent who is withholding life-saving treatment is using force to take their child's life, infringing on the child's inalienable right to life. This is the line at which a parent loses their parental authority of determination for their children and it is a line which must be guarded. Overstepping this line sets a course for degradation of paternal rights in other areas, like social teachings.

It is for this reason I was appalled at this story where the state of Nebraska physically removed an infant from its parents' custody because they refused to allow the state to do a mandatory blood test on the child:

A Nebraska couple sued state health officials Thursday, arguing their rights were violated when their newborn baby was seized by sheriff's deputies so a mandatory blood test could be performed.

Joel Anaya, who was almost 6 weeks old, was kept in foster care for six days until the tests came back negative earlier this month.

Note that the baby's life was in no danger. I do not believe the state has the right to require a mandatory blood test of any kind and they have overstepped the bounds by forcefully seizing and administering this test against the will of the parents, who have the rightful authority of determining health care procedures for their infant.

I guess I should assuage your opinion that I am an nut-job who would withhold medical treatment from my children. Personally I think saying NO to the tests is unwise, dangerous, and cruel. (Unless you have good reason to suspect the government is really using baby blood tests to store a record of our DNA so they can eventually create a race of alien-human super-beings, but I that's another post...) All three of my children have had the Alabama tests all three have had the required vaccinations. What does concern me is when I see the rights of those whose ideas have been deemed "crazy" by the majority of people trampled on. It could just a matter of time before the majority of people think my ideas are "crazy."