U.S. policies don’t put children first

The octuplets have called America’s bluff.

We pretend that we are a nation that puts children first. It’s a lie.

It’s a lie born of one of those old, Reagan-era wars between the left and the right over whether to reform welfare. The “welfare queen” label persisted, prompting the left to recast the debate from “welfare queen” to “children.” A nation fed up with the entitlement mentality of adults could be coerced into expanding social programs so long as the beneficiaries were “children.”

The recently renewed State Children’s Health Insurance Program, now expanded to cover some adults, is a perfect example.

The nation did finally force Congress to act on welfare reform. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, converting an open-ended entitlement into expanded assistance, but with a five-year limit on benefits and a requirement to work. The result was that caseloads dropped from 12.6 million in 1997 to under 5 million in 2007. While details are still filtering out, Congress appears to have signed back on to an open-ended entitlement promise in the just-passed “economic stimulus” bill.

The point here is that the core of these bitterly fought debates has never really been about what’s best for children. It’s adults playing self-empowerment, demanding complete liberty to pursue lifestyles unencumbered by commitment. The consequence is that almost 40 percent of children, such as those of Nadya Suleman in California, are born to unmarried women.

While that may serve the desires of men and women to play at commitment in virtual reality, it’s an adult game that is cruel and abusive to children. Robin Fretwell Wilson of the Washington & Lee University Law School conducted an important analysis of the research on how children fare in different adult living arrangements. “In virtually every comparison done to date, children in nuclear families fare better on average than other children,” she wrote.

It’s clear, too, from others who witness the effects on children firsthand, that those born to adults who don’t bother to marry “are more likely to live in poverty, be incarcerated later in life, suffer from physical and sexual abuse, abuse alcohol and drugs, and engage in early sexual activity and premarital child bearing.” That recognition was the basis for the Georgia Supreme Court Summit on Children, Marriage and Family Law held in Atlanta in November.

Those who believe that public policies should be centered on the “best interests of the child” starting at the moment of conception until the created human life is delivered whole into adulthood should be horrified by the cruelty heaped on 14 children.

If America does care about children, the spectacle of Nadya Suleman, who grotesquely allows the creation of a “family Web site” to solicit credit card donations, should be a defining moment in our national life. The financial costs will be astronomical. Three of the first six children are on Social Security disability; the last eight are low-birth-weight, with one featured on the Web site at 1 pound, 8 ounces. The largest is 3 pounds, 4 ounces.

Each of these children has a moral claim, and should have a legal claim, against the physician who assisted Suleman, Dr. Michael Kamrava. He’s being investigated by the California Medical Board, but loss of license does nothing to compensate the children for his lack of judgment. Each has a moral claim, and should have a legal claim, too, to financial support from the sperm donor.

Both men should have assessed the mental condition of the woman, along with her inability to support the needs of the first six, and realized that aiding and abetting in the casual creation of life would be contrary to the “best interests of the child.”

In the modern world where women and men can make flagrantly irresponsible choices, laws need to be changed to protect the unborn. The only real leverage policy-makers have is financial. Limits should be put on the number of children women can bear and for which they may expect to receive public assistance. Fertility clinics should be financially penalized if they knowingly put children at risk, as was clearly done here. Men, even sperm donors, should be liable, too, if they knew or should have known children would suffer from their act.

Our bluff’s been called. Are we about protecting children or not?

> Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Fridays, Tuesdays and Sundays.

jwooten@ajc.com