From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center.

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

The Armstrong and Getty show.

The state needs to be the ultimate guarantor of a child's well-being. There's just no alternative to that.

The reason parent-child relationships exist is because the state confers

legal parenthood on people through its paternity and maternity laws. That's the state

that is empowering parents to do anything with children to take them home

to have custody and to make any kind of decisions about that. That's a law

professor at William and Mary. The reason child-parent relationship exists is

because the state confers legal

parenthood on the people and he's suggesting that that was a bad idea or is

no longer a good idea or something it sounds like.

Well that is an emphatic rejection of

anything close to natural rights saying that the parent-child relationship

only exists because the government permits it, including, you know, you gave birth to a child, but

you get to keep it, that's up to us.

Now, we've decided there are abuse and drug abuse laws that kind of get into that area but for him to state it the way

he has that's crazy. We've decided that you can take the kid home and raise it but you

need to remember it's only because we let you it's our kid. how many people believe that wouldn't be very many

no but I'll bet you would find them absolutely thick in the halls of academia oh you

would you'd find it thick in some of your major universities, but you could go into some of the most democratic

people of color neighborhoods in this country and you'd better be armed if you're going to go try to tell

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