| Popis: |
This chapter describes how psychoanalysis has a vital contribution to make to the field of children’s constitutional rights. In general, children do not enjoy the same autonomy rights as adults, a state of affairs reinforced by robust protection for parents’ constitutional rights to raise their children as they see fit. Moreover, the Supreme Court has rejected the idea that children have affirmative rights to care and safety based on their special status as children. A psychoanalytic perspective alters the current framework for children’s rights by recognizing children’s affirmative claims to caregiving, to relationships with siblings, to physical and emotional safety, and to rehabilitation in the juvenile justice system. This chapter refers to these rights as “transitional rights,” that is, rights that recognize children’s experience as persons in the here and now as well as their experience as individuals developing along a trajectory toward adult citizenship. Transitional rights include those positive entitlements—to maintain relationships with adults and other children, to safety in the home and school, and to rehabilitation in the criminal justice system—tied to children’s special status as children. In this way, psychoanalysis opens up a more relational, constitutive, affirmative role for rights in constitutional law. |
