What's wrong with children's rights? / Martin Guggenheim.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Guggenheim, Martin.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Children's rights.

Children--Legal status, laws, etc--United States.

Children.

Parent and child (Law)--United States.

Parent and child (Law).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (321 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Children's rights": the phrase has been a legal battle cry for twenty-five years. But as this provocative book by a nationally renowned expert on children's legal standing argues, it is neither possible nor desirable to isolate children from the interests of their parents, or those of society as a whole. From foster care to adoption to visitation rights and beyond, Martin Guggenheim offers a trenchant analysis of the most significant debates in the children's rights movement, particularly those that treat children's interests as antagonistic to those of their parents. Guggenheim argues that "children's rights" can serve as a screen for the interests of adults, who may have more to gain than the children for whom they claim to speak. More important, this book suggests that children's interests are not the only ones or the primary ones to which adults should attend, and that a "best interests of the child" standard often fails as a meaningful test for determining how best to decide disputes about children.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

1. A Brief History of Children's Rights in the United States

2. The Rights of Parents

3. Getting and Losing Parental Rights: The "Baby Jessica" Case

4. Who Gets to Be the Parent? The Right to Relationships with Someone Else's Children

5. Divorce, Custody, and Visitation

6. Child Protection, Foster Care, and Termination of Parental Rights

7. Children's Rights that Serve Adults' Needs: The Case of Adolescents' Right to Abortion

8. How Children's Rights Impact Family Law and Juvenile Rights

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [269]-298) and index.

ISBN:

0-674-26410-X

0-674-03802-9

OCLC:

651788192