Baskerville: When abuse is alleged and judges award moms custody, are they really ‘erring on the side of caution’?
Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family by Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D. examines one of the greatest and most destructive civil rights abuses in America today--our family law system.
In the Taken Into Custody excerpt below, Baskerville asks an interesting question--when judges accept divorcing mothers' claims of abuse and grant them sole custody of the couple's children, are they really "erring on the side of caution"? Or, by allowing fathers to be driven to the margins of their children's lives, are the actually "erring on the side of danger," as fathers are their children's natural protectors?
Baskerville writes:
...divorce and single-parent homes are not precipitated by child abuse, as the courts, bar associations, and feminists would have us believe, but the other way around...some maintain that judges who summarily award sole custody to mothers on the merest accusation of abuse, even when they know full well that the father has done nothing wrong, are acting on the principle to “err on the side of caution.”
Yet this explanation is more charitable than tenable, since it is clear that the judges are erring on the side of danger, and it is difficult to believe they do not realize it. Judges are well aware that the most dangerous environment for children is precisely the single-mother homes they themselves create. Yet they have no hesitation in creating them, secure in the knowledge that they will never be held accountable for any harm that comes to the children.
To learn more or to purchase Taken Into Custody, click here.
Baskerville, author of many articles on fatherhood and family issues and a frequent media commentator, is assistant professor of government at Patrick Henry College and an Earhart Fellow at the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society.
|
| More from Glenn Sacks
Stumble It!
The answer to this question depends upon in whose direction “caution” is extolled.
If caution is meant to preserve the career of the judge and her patronage to the Bar Association, then yes, they are being truly cautious by “deciding” in such a favor.
If being cautious is intended for the benefit of the children, then it’s decidedly erring, and throwing all caution to the wind.