Stand up for the children

Earlier this week, this newspaper published a four-part series that made it graphically clear that child abuse and infanticide are not taken as seriously in Utah as they should be. Many children are suffering and dying with little hope.

And yet, we get the feeling that some lawmakers, together with a vocal minority of Utah residents, would completely do away with the Division of Child and Family Services if they could, removing forever the state's ability to take a child away from a family for any reason.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Wayne Harper, R-West Jordan, would allow parents to escape accountability for abuse if they use the excuse that whatever happened was accidental. It's hard to imagine an abusive parent who doesn't already use that excuse whenever confronted, and the child victim is in no position to reasonably dispute it. Specifically, the bill defines these "accidents" as conduct by a person who simply isn't aware he or she is engaging in abusive conduct, or by a person who is aware of his conduct but when "a reasonable person" wouldn't expect such conduct to result in injury.

The only people who would seem to be in danger of accountability under the bill are those who harmed their children while under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs.

In order to take action, state workers would have to present clear and convincing evidence that a problem exists, which is a much higher standard than the current preponderance of evidence.

Harper says this is designed to protect the sanctity of the family. Instead, it sounds like a measure to send Utah back to the days when child abuse was quietly ignored and the culture treated children as little more than the property of their parents.

In the days since this paper's four-part series ran, some readers have written to complain about the graphic nature of the descriptions and photographs. Indeed, they were disturbing. But they were real. The victims were real people, and the perpetrators were doing hideous things to the state's most innocent and vulnerable residents — people too young to have a voice on Capitol Hill.

Utahns have to come face to face with the fact that this kind of abuse is among them. There is no pleasant or delicate way to do that. But those images and descriptions stand in powerful contrast to the people who say the state should have a diminished ability to intervene.

Harper's bill is the latest twist on the Parker Jensen case, which riveted Utah families two years ago. But it's difficult to see how Parker's disputed cancer diagnosis has anything to do with the horrible cases of abuse taking place in a few families around the state, or why state workers should have to back off if a parent says the bruises were the result of an accident.

For the kids' sake, lawmakers should see this bill gets no further.