Post by Walter on Dec 5, 2003 22:16:44 GMT -5
Our Liberal friends support Partial Birth Abortion despite the pain and agony it perpetrates on its most helpless victims.
Now, in Massachusetts, our Liberal friends protects parents who abuse their infant children.
No, it isn't intentional...but it might as well be.
Getting serious about child abuse
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, December 5, 2003
Eight-week-old Aidyn Hudson is in critical condition. So too a Webster infant. They are apparently the most recent victims of shaken baby syndrome, which is just another term for child abuse.
And what does Department of Social Services Commissioner Harry Spence propose? Well, more public education of young parents. Oh, and young mothers should avoid leaving their babies with young men - the most frequent perpetrators of this crime. Spence didn't use that word. No, he simply said, ``This is occurring with a frequency that's alarming.''
``This'' what, commissioner?
Children are being abused in the most horrific way, in the most criminal way. And yet DSS - a collection of well-meaning social workers - persists in treating this like just another ``family'' issue. It's reminiscent of the early days of domestic abuse, when wives were repeatedly told to try to patch things - until too many of them ended up dead for a civil society to ignore.
Well, the problem of shaken baby syndrome - there are apparently now seven victims in eight months - is too dreadful to ignore too.
Part of the problem arises from hospitals being caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They are hampered by tough new federal laws governing the release of any medical information to non-family members and the mandated reporting laws, which require health care professionals to report cases of suspected child abuse to DSS. In the case of Aidyn Hudson DSS took five days to report the suspected abuse to police.
In the Webster case, ``DSS hasn't told us anything,'' according to Webster Police Sgt. William Keefe. ``All we know is the baby ended up in the hospital.''
And once the child enters a hospital, parents can invoke their rights under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) to keep that child's records private - and investigators of such crimes say they often do.
Meanwhile DSS fiddles, thus possibly endangering the lives of other children in the same household or the same day care center or wherever the scene of the crime was.
DSS has repeatedly shown it is simply not up to the job of reporting to police - in a timely fashion - crimes against children, who have no other voice. Health care professionals who are already mandated reporters of abuse ought to be required to report simultaneously to police and DSS. Police in any number of communities have long asked to be included in the process from its very beginning. They should be. Legislators should tend to this bit of business - which they have talked about and talked about and yet done nothing about - as soon as they return next year.
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I'm looking forward to seeing some responses that suggest how mean spirited the right is and how caring the left is.
Any takers?
Now, in Massachusetts, our Liberal friends protects parents who abuse their infant children.
No, it isn't intentional...but it might as well be.
Getting serious about child abuse
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, December 5, 2003
Eight-week-old Aidyn Hudson is in critical condition. So too a Webster infant. They are apparently the most recent victims of shaken baby syndrome, which is just another term for child abuse.
And what does Department of Social Services Commissioner Harry Spence propose? Well, more public education of young parents. Oh, and young mothers should avoid leaving their babies with young men - the most frequent perpetrators of this crime. Spence didn't use that word. No, he simply said, ``This is occurring with a frequency that's alarming.''
``This'' what, commissioner?
Children are being abused in the most horrific way, in the most criminal way. And yet DSS - a collection of well-meaning social workers - persists in treating this like just another ``family'' issue. It's reminiscent of the early days of domestic abuse, when wives were repeatedly told to try to patch things - until too many of them ended up dead for a civil society to ignore.
Well, the problem of shaken baby syndrome - there are apparently now seven victims in eight months - is too dreadful to ignore too.
Part of the problem arises from hospitals being caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They are hampered by tough new federal laws governing the release of any medical information to non-family members and the mandated reporting laws, which require health care professionals to report cases of suspected child abuse to DSS. In the case of Aidyn Hudson DSS took five days to report the suspected abuse to police.
In the Webster case, ``DSS hasn't told us anything,'' according to Webster Police Sgt. William Keefe. ``All we know is the baby ended up in the hospital.''
And once the child enters a hospital, parents can invoke their rights under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) to keep that child's records private - and investigators of such crimes say they often do.
Meanwhile DSS fiddles, thus possibly endangering the lives of other children in the same household or the same day care center or wherever the scene of the crime was.
DSS has repeatedly shown it is simply not up to the job of reporting to police - in a timely fashion - crimes against children, who have no other voice. Health care professionals who are already mandated reporters of abuse ought to be required to report simultaneously to police and DSS. Police in any number of communities have long asked to be included in the process from its very beginning. They should be. Legislators should tend to this bit of business - which they have talked about and talked about and yet done nothing about - as soon as they return next year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm looking forward to seeing some responses that suggest how mean spirited the right is and how caring the left is.
Any takers?