Child Abuse As Slavery: A Thirteenth Amendment Response to DeShaney
Date
1992
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Harvard Law Review
Abstract
In Part I of this Commentary, we introduce the reader to Joshua DeShaney and the Supreme Court opinions that grew out of the child abuse he suffered. In subsequent Parts, we argue that the Thirteenth Amendment creates dramatic remedial opportunities for Joshua and others like him. The idea that the Thirteenth Amendment might apply to child abuse will no doubt strike many readers as novel, if not farfetched. We ask these readers for patience and remind them that, for example, only a generation ago, the ideas that abortion and pornography implicate equality rights for women - ideas now widely held - were seen by many as similarly novel and farfetched. By the end of this Commentary, we hope to establish that the plight of Joshua DeShaney implicates the core concerns of the Thirteenth Amendment, and that the Amendment speaks to the horror of child abuse with remarkable directness. Indeed, we believe that this Amendment - and not the doctrine of substantive due process - provides the best constitutional vehicle to conceptualize and characterize cases like Joshua's. (Author Text)
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Keywords
child abuse, slavery, legal commentary, Constitutional Law
Citation
Amar, A. R., & Widawsky, D. (1992). Child Abuse as Slavery: A Thirteenth Amendment Response to DeShaney. Harvard Law Review, 1359-1385.