Saturday, May 23, 2009

Parent's Rights...are they extinct?

Hey peeps. No new art just yet. I'm changing computers today. Should have the new pooter hooked up sometime this morning, and with it, I'll post a couple new things I'm working on, plus some unlettered pages from the soon-to-be-released graphic novel I worked on, "Stranger Danger Vol. 1."

And now for something completely different...

I dread the day I become a parent. Since hitting the quarter-century mark, I've found myself nurturing the desire to become a father. The idea appeals to me in many ways, and just when I think I'm ready to pull the trigger, something like this happens...



I'm not religious fundamentalist, so the idea of defending the Hauser's--or specifically the mother--from the POV of religious freedom is meaningless to me. What concerns me here is the blatant disregard by the State of Minnesota for the rights of the parents on this issue. Regardless of if you believe their choice to not seek chemotherapy to treat the kid's cancer, we as a society seem to have forgotten that it is not our business to enforce our will or ethics on someone else. If you believe in individaul freedom, parents rights, or even that religious freedom thing, then logic dictates that you must...YOU MUST...side with the parents on this issue, and not the State.

We used to live in a time when parents were given the power to raise their children as they saw fit. Sure, there were some bad apples in the bunch, going overboard with physical punishment to the point of abuse...but because of that, now parents cannot even spank their children anymore without fear of going to prison.

My parents are smokers. They always have been. They smoked with myself and my two younger sisters in the house or car all the time. My mother even smoked while pregnant with us. None of us are deformed, none of us mental handicapped (well, at least I don't think so...I'm sure some people would disagree), we turned out all right. We were also spanked when we got in trouble...not all the time, but when it was considered a punishment befitting the crime by our parents. While we may have suffered the occasional ass-cheek bruise at the hands of a open palm/hair brush/belt, we turned out all right. We don't cower like a dog when someone offers a high-five, and we don't walk around getting into fist fights because we feel violence is the only way to solve our problems.

My parents were good parents. They did the best they could, as I believe is the case with 99% of all parents out there. But if my folks were attempting to raise myself and my sisters today, as they did then, they would be demonized and possibly arrested, leaving us kids without parents...which would have been much more destructive to our development as human beings.

We may not agree with the choices made by other folks, but it ain't our place to impose our will or our ideas on them. And while I think it would be better for Daniel Hauser if he cowboy'd up and endured the chemo, it's not my place, or anyone elses--especially the government's--to decide otherwise. It's not even his. It's his parents place. Their choice, and their's alone.

Take nothing for granted.

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