Children have the right to grow up whole and sane. Parents, on the other hand, have both the responsibility and the right to raise their “own” children. Where do these two sets of rights conflict? Whose rights have precedence?
“The child’s health and safety shall be the paramount concern.” (ASFA, Sec. 101(a)) The 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act makes clear the primacy of the child’s rights. Rights are based upon needs. We all have the right to what we need, and basic needs take precedence over more sophisticated ones. By identifying “health and safety” needs, ASFA is indicating that the child’s basic needs supersede the less basic needs of the parent to raise a child.
Rights flow from basic needs. Human beings have a hierarchy of needs according to Maslow (1968), with needs for food and warmth, health and safety, taking precedence over higher level needs of belongingness, power, and self-actualization. The more basic the need, the more dominant the right. The child’s needs for health and safety are related to sanity and life itself. They have priority over the parents' needs for belongingness, control, and fulfillment in caring for a child as he grows.