School: Emory University School of Law

An oft debated question in American politics concerns at what point human life begins. The question has become fundamental to central tenets of society --

such as religion and politics -- and the issue has become so fractious that there seems little room for compromise. A much clichéd statement is that those on one side of the debate only care about what happens before birth and not the children left after the delivery. However, my internship in the Fulton County Juvenile Court Child Advocates Office has developed in me a lingering question that parallels that argument. At what point do children deserve the same protection under the law as adults?

During the ESCAP training session, a speaker made the point that children are treated as the property of their parents. Essentially, the passing down of genetics creates a bond akin to slavery between parent and child. Parents have the right to make decisions for their children, control the movement of their children, and control the behavior of their children. In most cases, this right should be in place. My question concerns what breaks the chains and ties that link children to their parents.

An eight year old child came into court last week that broke my heart. Bubbly, outgoing, sweet, and polite, the little boy dressed in blue overalls was in court for a private guardianship filing. When he was six months old, his mother, a drug addict, voluntarily gave custody to family friends. She disappeared for the next 7 years and never took an interest in her son. In fact, the little boy did not even realize that she was his actual mother. Seven years after first abandoning him with family friends, the mother turned back up. She had lost custody of her younger children in Florida to their father, and she decided to come back to Georgia to reclaim the little boy she abandoned long ago.

The little boy didn't even recognize the woman he saw outside of the court room that day, hugging him, asking him if he was ready to come home to mommy. She had a job now, an apartment, and was getting remarried in a few weeks. DFACS had never been involved in the case because the mother had given up custody willingly, and it would be hard to show now that he would be deprived if returned to her. The little boy, when asked, said he wanted to go home to his mommy -- that he loved her. If the child advocate had not taken a break to re-interview the boy and discovered that the child's foster mom was the one he considered to be mommy, the child's own words would have been used against him in the worst possible way. Even though the mother had abandoned the child years earlier, the child was not found to be deprived. The "best interest" of the child was to be taken from the only family he had ever known or loved and placed with a woman he considered to be a stranger. Were the child's rights considered at all in this matter, or were they completely overshadowed by the rights of his mother -- the woman who "owned" him?

Later that afternoon, after returning from court, I was researching signs of child abuse. I had undertaken a project creating a brochure attorneys can use to recognize signs of abuse and also to help them interview physicians in cases involving abuse. The research was beginning to take its toll. I treaded through page after page of information on abuse -- of statistics, of stories collected in emergency rooms, of the treating physicians' experiences in court proceedings. At the bottom of one document, a doctor's court testimony struck me so much that it still resounds in my head: "Crimes are committed against children every day and ignored, but if the crime was adult against adult, it would immediately send the offender to jail."

The statement was plain and straightforward, but I found myself ruminating over it the entire afternoon. A person could beat their child and not be charged with a crime -- just given a DFACS case plan and provided with services. If a person beat their spouse or another adult, they would go to jail. Does this mean that violence against adults is taken more seriously than violence against children? When does a child stop being the possession of his or her parent and given the same rights afforded to any other individual or citizen? Can child abuse problems, or even the way children are treated in court, be changed if we don't refocus and modify the way society views the rights of a child?

With all eyes in child advocacy turned to the Kenny A. v. Purdue case this past year, it still amazes many that children were held to have a fundamental right to adequate counsel. It reminds me of the changes that must have occurred after the Civil War, and how shocked many were when former slaves were given rights. They were finally considered to be people, no longer property, and they were given rights in accordance with this view. It also makes me think of how important the basic right to adequate counsel is to a child faced with a deprivation hearing in juvenile court.

While the decisions in many cases this summer have upset me, I have seen how well the process can work when a dedicated child advocate is assigned to the case. My supervisor, Chris Yokom, is an individual who believes that children have intrinsic value and that they deserve to grow up with love. I have observed how hard he argues for the kids assigned to his care -- how he makes sure to interview them, to get their side of the story before proceeding in court. I see how he takes the time to go to their homes -- and how he always goes that extra step to refer a child to a new program or search for extra services that could be put in place. When a child is not brought to court, I saw his concern when he asked me to go visit the child in his group home, and the time he spent following up with the case after I reported on the irregularities I found. We both were horrified that the misbehavior of one child was dealt with by punishing all children; how their clothing was taken away as a retribution tactic; how they were encouraged to runaway. I saw how supportive he was of me when I wrote the report to the governing agency about the home, and when I went back to the home to interview every child whom we had placed there. Chris was ecstatic when the home was set to be shut down, and he made me feel proud of my accomplishments in helping it be put out of business. All in all, I could not have asked for a better experience.