Posted on 12/03/2003 5:34:18 AM PST by RogerFGay
Fathers seize child agency office
20 November 2003
AMSTERDAM A group of angry fathers, who are involved in custody battles over their children, took over an office of the Dutch child protection agency Kinderbescherming on Thursday, the International Day of the Child.
Between 15 and 20 men seized control of the building in Zutphen and effectively imprisoned five staff members, Kinderbescherming spokeswoman Annette van der Hoorn said.
The men, who have been denied visitation to their children, said they had taken the drastic action on World Child Day to highlight the injustice of their situations.
They have not allowed anyone in or out of the offices and hung banners from the window of the offices.
The men have demanded the child protection agency only give advice on how custody arrangements should be made. Present legislation means that parents who breach an imposed custody arrangement forfeit their custodial rights.
The fathers have also demanded a meeting with Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner, the mayor of Zutphen and Kinderbescherming director H. Pasman.
Van der Hoorn said the agency's staff members who were being held in the building did not appear to be in any direct danger. Staff were continuing with their work and the police were not called to the scene.
The UN designated 20 November as the International Day of the Child after the signing of an official convention on the rights of children in 1989.
If you have 2 parents that are honestly committed to the wellbeing of the children, it can work well. Generally it requires a cooperative relationship between the parents. In other situations it isn't even a healthy option. Divorce often involves one or both individuals who are dysfunctional in some way to begin with. Often legal joint custody between these types of people does little more than reduce the child to a psychological "chew toy."
I know the thinking, at one time anyway, was that it was important for a child's stability for there to be one parent who had the final word in disputes. With reasonable people there is a lot of room for flexibility in a sole custody arrangement. Of course, the key here is "reasonable" people. All too often those involved in custody battles are neither reasonable nor putting the child's best interest first.
I have seen joint custody work well, and I have seen it be a disaster, with the children having no sense of permanence with either parent. What you end up with is the perpetual involvement of the state and 2 or more families with their lives completely under their control, which, as we should know from any number of other situations by now, isn't looking out for any body's interests BUT the state's.
The SCOTUS, last time I checked. Roe v Wade. Look it up.
Two things wrong here. First, the SCOTUS doesn't have the ability to "give rights". Rights are assets that every human enjoys. The Constitution, with the Bill of Rights, enumerates SOME of these rights and protect the rest under the much-ignored 10th A.
All the SCOTUS has done with Roe v. Wade is say that abortion is legal. The phrase "abortion rights" is a rhetorical device to conflate abortion with actual human rights.
Second, just because something is legal doesn't make it right, nor does it make it a right. The vast majority of the time abortions are performed, it is for selfish and morally vacant reasons.
When a woman aborts her child, it is a separate, distinct life form, with separate, distinct DNA. By snuffing that child out, she is declaring (with the support of the SCOTUS decision) that her personal needs prevail over the human rights of the fetus. This is rarely morally justifiable; perhaps when the mother's life is threatened or severe deformities are present. But, with the state of modern, readily available contraceptives, the rate of abortions in modern times is more tragic than the AIDS crisis of Africa.
O'Reilly doesn't have any problems with the way the current system is, other than that he thinks that more men should just pay up, shut up, and take whaever role the court graciously allows them to have with their own kids. I don't have any problems with people taking responsibility, but there had damn well better be some substantial rights to go along with that. As it is now, one party gets the bulk of the rights and the other gets the bulk of the responsibility.
Sorry, but you're wrong here. I assumed you've "looked it up" since you're adamant about this. Where did you find this information?
If I am not mistaken, I think it was Ted Nugent who had a great idea on the custody issue. The kids got the house and the parents had to be the ones moving in and out for joint custody. IOW, the kids need for stability and permanence was more important to them. I think that is a great idea.
I had a friend who had joint custody and it was literally 50/50 the kids spent half the week at dad's and the other half at mom's, they lived in the same school district. The only thing was the poor kids were basket cases. They were very angry and wild. Of course both boys were put on ritalin b/c they were "ADHD", they were 3 and 5 at the time. Maybe their behaviors were their only means of communicating the chaos in their lives because they did not have the verbal skills to express their feelings?? Could this possibly the reason so many kids are "ADHD"??
They never had the time to enjoy their homes because before you knew it it was time to pack up and move. The father was the better parent and should have received sole custody with liberal visitation imo.
So I take it from your remarks, PL, that you are pro-abortion. Please correct me if I am wrong on that count.
A child growing "in someone else's body" as you say, didn't get there by immaculate conception. That child, as you rightfully termed it, has a mother AND a father. The child has a right to life, but until he or she is a legal adult, decisions about the welfare of the child should rightfully belong to both parents. Of course, I am assuming that people will behave rationally, which I should have learned by now, is all too frequently no longer the case.
The whole notion of a child being best off with the mother came from the underlying premise that no one in the world would fight to protect the child like it's mother, so strong was the bond between them. The fact that a woman would fight for the "right" to kill her child at the point where it is the most vulnerable and most dependent upon her for nurture and sustenance is an abandonment of that natural bond, and in my opnion, a father who wishes to save his child from death at the hands of its own mother is by definition a more suitable parent and should have the right to not only save, but raise, his child.
I'd rather see it as having good parents. : )
I second that notion.
I suppose it never occurs to them to keep it in their pants. Of course, if women would go back to exercising that ever so important word, "no," then we'd be having a lot less abortions AND have a lot less unwanted children running around. By no stretch of the imagination can recreational sex be construed to, in any way, facilitate family values and it is the loss of family values that has created this monster in the first place.
Cut her a little slack. I think she's doing very well at curtailing the DU expletives. Most of them would have outed themselves long before now.
Beautifully put!
Last I checked, the Constitution said everything about Congress regulating commerce.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.