Pediatricians vs Family Rights

Pediatricians Take on the NRA:

By Toni on June 2, 2014 (Excerpted in part from The Daily Beast May 15, 2014.)

 “The NRA and the AAP have been embroiled in a very public legal feud over the rights of doctors to talk with parents about gun safety.” 

This article starts out with a lie.  The NRA (and private families) have complained for decades about the unethical practices of American Pediatricians with respect to the way they unilaterally champion their own causes ... at the detriment to the way families choose to raise their children.

At heart is the (previously) common practice of Pediatricians to  privately quiz children on the family ownership of firearms.

This is not something new here; I've talked about this before )in 2007 ... see the links at the bottom of the page), and I'm not the only one who has complained; which is the reason the 'very public legal feud' has occurred.

The AAP has a Jones on about "Guns In The Home":

For the past three decades, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) – with 62,000 members – has been an outspoken voice on the issue of gun control. In 1992, the AAP issued its first policy statement supporting a handgun and assault weapons ban, making it the first public health organization to do so, and it has long recommended that doctors talk about gun safety with parents. Since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, the AAP has stepped up attempts to educate parents about gun safety around children.

In other words, the AAP has become very actively intrusive in the family home.  And some families resent the way that their pediatricians unprofessional activism has turned their children against him.


Here's what the AAP's own blogsite recommends as 'treatement practices' when talking to children .. outside the presence of their parents:

In your practice:

• Address firearms safety as part of your routine anticipatory guidance with children of all ages. Ask about the presence of firearms in the home, and counsel parents who do keep guns to store them unloaded in a locked case, with the ammunition locked separately. While the safest home for children is one without a gun, safe storage practices can significantly reduce the risk of gun injury or death.

- See more at: http://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/Pages/How-Pediatricians-Can-Advocate-for-Childrens-Safety-in-Their-Communities.aspx#sthash.yIsALNXe.dpuf


Note that the advisory does not specify who is asked "... about the presence of firearms in the home ...".

The issue has not been that Pediatricians are counselling parents (whether the parent have expressed a wish to be given the advice at all).

The issue has been that Pediatricians have been separating the children from the parents, and then talking to the children without the parental guidance which is THEIR right.



Given that the widespread practice might be applicable in 'at-risk' homes, the AAP has unilaterally decided that any home in which a firearm is present IS, by definition, an 'at-risk' home.

Gun rights advocates, including the NRA, have taken exception to this practice of counselling impressionable children outside the presence of their parents.  Parents Rights organizations, as well, have complained bitterly about the effect of their Pediatrician turning children against their parents.

During the couple of years since I have written about this issue, the online publications of the AAP have changed to remove any suggestion that the suggested counselling is directed at the children, rather than the family ... including the parents.

Due to the publicity generated by this usurpation of parental rights, it's difficult to determine whether the suggested practices from AAP have changed, or whether they have continued sub rosa to promote un-monitored promotion to children of their own private agenda; the AAP website carefully does not mention that the parent should be separated from the parents for this "counselling".

On the other hand, there is no obvious exhortation to ensure that both parents and child should be participants in the discussion.  The worst-case expectation is that the practice has not changed, but the website verbiage has been altered to throw doubt on the practice ... NOT to clarify the recommendations.

Assuming the worst ... that doctors continue using their privileged position as care-takers to impose their political views on their patients, and that the "patients" on the receiving in are naive children, then the "professionals"  are interjecting themselves into the parent/child relationship.

Me Doctor!

Imagine if the child revealed that her parents drove a Chevy Nova, and The Doctor advised her that it was unsafe.  The next time her parents tried to drive her to a "play date", she might say: "Please, Mom, don't  make me ride in this car.  Doctor says it's unsafe!"

Sorry ... got a bit carried away with the whole "Me Doctor" schtick.



References:

May 30, 2006:  Pompous WaPo Anti-Gun Nut With An Agenda
Oct. 02, 2007: Gun-Control Doctors
Oct. 04, 2007: Gun-Control Doctors: Part Deux
Oct. 07, 2007:  Gun-Control Doctors: Part Trois

(Note that many of the links embedded in these articles are 'broken', for any of several reasons)


x
x
x

x
x
x