Family Privacy in South Africa

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Rochester Area Right To Life

The South African Law Commission Proposes State Intrusion into Family Privacy.

In the Doctors For Life (DFL) response to the South Africa Law Commission's (SALC's) proposed new Child Care Act we express concern that parents are to be written out of certain health care decisions concerning their children, and that their method of disciplining of their own children at home is to be dictated by the government. Also, current ill-conceived abortion legislation is being covered up in an undemocratic way that is unfounded in scientific facts. This results, not only in a moral and legal quagmire, but more importantly, in jeopardising the rights of the unborn child to treatment, for example Nevirapine to prevent the baby from being born with AIDS. It appears the SALC's definition of childhood as beginning at birth is not just arbitrarily at odds with sound science, but a deliberate attempt to both cover up for mistakes in the law and to achieve a political agenda.

According to the proposed Act, no matter how young a child is, she is to have confidential access to both family planning and abortion. DFL presented strong scientific evidence showing that children into their late teens are unable to process information that includes potential future risks and benefits in order to come to a responsible informed decision. In all other areas of health care this is recognised by the government. Parental permission is required before a child can have a broken arm put in plaster. Recent advances in science have shown that abortion, and contraception in childhood and adolescence carry much greater risks than in adulthood - risks that include breast and cervical cancer among others. Children are unable to assess the risks. For instance the risk of breast cancer has been clearly and unequivocally shown to be 50% higher in those having elective abortions before their firstborn baby than in those who have not had an abortion. Research has shown that the overall effect of expanding family planning services for under-16s has been to increase pregnancies and abortions.

The SALC also proposes that parents be prohibited from administering corporal punishment to their own children. Parents in a democratic society rear their offspring with different values and perspectives ensuring a desirable diversity in childrearing goals and outcomes. Most recent scientific evidence shows that appropriately administered physical punishment has a beneficial rather than a harmful effect. Since this socially approved practice has not been shown to be harmful in itself, it is the State's duty to promote children's welfare by respecting family privacy and parental autonomy. DFL is convinced that the State should minimise unnecessary intrusion into family life as this is psychologically threatening to children by undermining their trust in parental authority (even when intended to advance their "best" interests). The ethical problem that should govern State intervention into family life is whether State intervention will yield greater benefit than harm to children. In the case of the appropriate physical punishment of children by parents the evidence shows clearly that for the State to prohibit it will result in greater harm than good.

The recent court hearings in the Pretoria High Court and the Constitutional Court involving the Treatment Action Campaign and the Minister of Health and others has highlighted the topic of the treatment of the unborn child by giving medicine to the mother. Nevirapine to prevent AIDS is only one of the many treatments the unborn child can benefit from. The SALC proposes that childhood begins at birth, contrary to scientific and medical evidence. It seems that the ill-conceived abortion legislation has loopholes that the Government is trying to cover up. If childhood begins before birth, then the unborn child is protected by law. By arbitrarily and unscientifically defining childhood as beginning at birth, this removes any protection afforded by the Child Care Act for the unborn child, and also removes any possibility of ensuring that the unborn child has a right to treatment (for example Nevirapine to prevent the baby from being born with AIDS).

DFL is committed to sound science within medicine and has therefore submitted to the Law Commission recent international research findings concerning medical and scientific aspects of all these aspects of the proposed new Child Care Act which it appears that the Law Commission has failed to take into account.

DFL is an organisation of over 750 doctors, specialists and professors of medicine from different medical faculties across South Africa.

Press release by Doctors for Life of South Africa.  April 7, 2002.   Web site: www.dfl.org.za


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