Paedophiles convicted of serious sexual offences could lose parental rights over their children under a new law.
The proposed law change comes after the BBC reported the case of a mother who spent £30,000 in legal fees to stop her paedophile ex-husband getting access to their daughter.
After hearing the story, Labour MP Harriet Harman tabled an amendment to upcoming legislation.
It covers the most serious sexual offence - rape of a child under 13.
Speaking to BBC News, Ms Harman said paedophiles who were guilty of that crime in the future would be “automatically deprived” of their parental rights.
Even though I understand it, I find it disturbing that such a heinous crime as rape can then have additional depts of depravity.
I don’t know if I think it’s needed to put the bar for removal of parental rights at a sublevel of rape… “just rape” (what?! See how horrible this is) should be enough to remove parental rights. But I might be missing something…
I don’t know what I personally think, but my guess about the justification is that the state intervenes when it’s in the best interests of the child. Its purpose is to protect and aid the minor when families can’t.
It is considered a harm to deprive children permanently of access to their parents, without showing that it’s more harmful for the kid to be around them. So crime doesn’t automatically remove access. Is the theory.
The state isn’t supposed to treat permanent removal of access to a child as another criminal punishment. One thing I do agree on, though, is that people who rape kids shouldn’t have unsupervised visits with their minor children, since they’ve proven themselves harmful specifically to children. Not even supervised, honestly.
I guess I’d want to see studies about outcomes of kids who are allowed around convicted adult rapist parents, vs those allowed access to parents convicted of nonviolent crimes. Or a study designed by people who know how to design studies well. Instead of my rambling suggestion.
I worry that our vibe checks get warped around kids, and we ignore what’s proven right vs what feels right. Like people who feel really strongly that kids need their parents specifically have warped the narrative on this issue, and I don’t want to warp it in a different way.