Protection of Children vs Privacy

"A US stepfather has been arrested after a neighbour allegedly filmedhim beating his stepson after the boy dropped the ball while playing catch intheir backyard."

There are 2 topics I wish to discuss from this story that surfaced this weekend.


The first concerns the invasion of privacy. At what point are we legally allowed to invade the privacy of a family and home for the sake of safety (for any family member)? Maybe there had been a history of the step-father beating his child. Maybe this was a real problem and needed to be exposed. What if the guy filming only got half of the story? What if the father and son were throwing the football and the son said something disrespectful or defiant towards the father that the guy filming did not hear? I'm not justifying the belting but what if the child did something that required some level of discipline?
What if my 4 year old child was actively defiant and disobedient and I decided the best form of disciple for him was to smack his bottom once? What if someone videoed only the smack through my bedroom window and posted it on Youtube or Facebook with damning mistaken accusations? I do not believe this would be acceptable because as a parent, it is my responsibility to discipline my children, not the community, government or police. If it was a matter of harming the child, then that is a different story and I believe someone must step in. The problem is that the definition of child abuse is as subjective as a high school English essay on Shakespeare.  I do not know if the step-father is in the wrong because I do not know the whole story. While his actions sound extreme, I do not believe this is a situation where immediate intervention was necessary. Definitely posting video of this on Facebook and Youtube is unacceptable and counterproductive if the intension was to bring justice to the situation. We are not vigilantes! Maybe the neighbour should have taken the time to go and talk to the step-father and explain his concerns rather than shouting profanities at him through his second story window while filming him.

The second thing I wanted to discuss builds on the idea of intervening when obvious child abuse is happening. When the life of a child is in danger; we should step in despite the right of privacy. This is no different to interceding if you see someone trying to kill someone or steal someone’s car, etc. The right of privacy of the individual committing the offence is minor in comparison to the consequences of the act and is therefore waivered.
If we then take this reasoning, we would not hesitate to intervene if we saw someone threatening the life of a child, especially a new born defenseless baby. Why then does this not project through to a child in the womb? Why are we not able to intervene, despite personal privacy, when the life of a child still in the womb is being threatened? Why is the personal privacy and rights of the mother more important than protecting the life of a child with unrealized potential and inherent value?  How can someone agree with the filming of the step-fathering belting his child for the sake of justice yet not be willing to agree with those who attempt to save the lives of child still in the womb? Even in the extreme cases given such as rape cases, etc, there is no justification to taking the life of a defenseless child. Again, this argument is dependant on the definition of a when a human being becomes a 'person'. I'll touch on that debate in another post to come.