Volume 8, Number 2
October 2014
ARTICLE

The State’s Duty to Ensure Children Are Loved

Volume 8, Number 2, October 2014, Pages 1–20
https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v8i2.80
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Abstract

Do children have a right to be loved? An affirmative answer faces two immediate challenges: (i) A child’s basic needs can be met without love, therefore a defense of such a right cannot appeal to the role of love in protecting children’s most basic needs, and (ii) since love is nonvoluntary, it seems that there cannot be a corresponding duty on the part of parents to love their child. In this essay, I defend an affirmative answer that overcomes both of these challenges. First, I argue that the right of children to be loved is grounded in the value of children leading meaningful lives. Second, I argue that the right of children to be loved gives rise to a duty on the part of the state to do all that it legitimately can to ensure that procreation and parenting follow from a truly voluntary decision on the part of its citizens.
Copyright © 2014 Luara Ferracioli
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
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