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Supporting Arguments for Parent Licensing Essays

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Supporting Arguments for Parent Licensing In Hugh Lafollette’s paper “Licensing Parents” he talks about the need for government licensing of parents. His argument states that for any activity that is harmful to others, requires competence, and has a reliable procedure for determining competence, should require licensing by the government. This argument relates to parenting because it can be harmful to children, requires competence to raise children, and we can assume that a reliable procedure can be formulated. Therefore, parenting should require licensing by the government. I agree with Lafollette and shall focus on supporting him by addressing the most practical objections: “There is no reliable procedure for identifying competent …show more content…

This approach will allow different cultures to raise their children according to their beliefs as long as they are not severely harmed. The overgeneralization objection is not sound because the “procedures for licensing drivers, physicians, lawyers, druggists etc. plainly are not 100 percent accurate,” so striving for a perfect test is unrealistic (Lafollette 1980, 189). We have to accept that some bad parents will mistakenly licensed and good parents denied just as some bad drivers are licensed and good drivers are denied. Lafollette also notes that since these types of tests are not 100 percent accurate, people will be able to reapply just as they can reapply for a driver’s license. Therefore, a general test should weed out most of the bad parents with few errors. From these objections and responses, we can see that a reliable procedure for identifying competent parents could be formulated. A second objection that carries a lot of force is that “…we could never adequately, reasonably, and fairly enforce…” a parent licensing program (Lafollette 1980, 193). This objection carries so much force because a couple can conceive babies without the help of anyone else. Due to this fact it would be impossible to control unauthorized babies because there is no fair way to enforce such a law without harming the innocent child.

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