The First Chapter of Children’s Rights (July/august 1990 | Volume: 41, Issue: 5)

The First Chapter of Children’s Rights

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Authors: Marian Eide

Historic Era: Era 5: Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)

Historic Theme:

Subject:

July/august 1990 | Volume 41, Issue 5

In the quiet New York courtroom, the little girl began to speak. “My name is Mary Ellen McCormack. I don’t know how old I am. … I have never had but one pair of shoes, but can’t recollect when that was. I have had no shoes or stockings on this winter.… I have never had on a particle of flannel. My bed at night is only a piece of carpet, stretched on the floor underneath a window, and I sleep in my little undergarment, with a quilt over me. I am never allowed to play with any children or have any company whatever. Mamma has been in the habit of whipping and beating me almost every day. She used to whip me with a twisted whip, a raw hide. The whip always left black and blue marks on my body. I have now on my head two black and blue marks which were made by mamma with the whip, and a cut on the left side of my forehead which was made by a pair of scissors in mamma’s hand. She struck me with the scissors and cut me. I have no recollection of ever having been kissed, and have never been kissed by mamma. I have never been taken on my mamma’s lap, or caressed or petted. I never dared to speak to anybody, because if I did I would get whipped. … Whenever mamma went out I was locked up in the bedroom. … I have no recollection of ever being in the street in my life.”

More than a century ago, an abused child began a battle that is still being fought today

At the beginning of 1874, there were no legal means in the United States to save a child from abuse. Mary Ellen’s eloquent testimony changed that, changed our legal system’s view of the rights of the child.

Yet more than a century later the concerns that arose from Mary Ellen’s case are still being battled over in the courts. The classic dilemmas of just how deeply into the domestic realm the governmental arm can reach and what the obligations of public government are to the private individual take on particular urgency in considering child abuse.

Early in 1989, in the case of DeShaney v. Winnebago County, the Supreme Court declared that the government is not obligated to protect its citizens against harm inflicted by private individuals. DeShaney brought the case be- fore the court in a suit against county social service agencies that had failed to intervene when her estranged husband abused their son, Joshua, who, as a result of his father’s brutality, suffered permanent brain damage. The father was convicted, but his former wife believes that fault also lies with the agencies, whose failure to intercede violated her son’s Fourteenth Amendment right not to be deprived of life or liberty without due process of the law. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote