Some parents abuse their kids.
Child welfare workers are supposed to stop that to protect the kids.
But bad things often happen while they watch.
"Children have a right to safety," says Tim Keller. "If home is a danger, we as a society have to step in and protect those children."
Keller, legal director of the Center for the Rights of Abused Children, is a libertarian.
"It's surprising to hear a libertarian argue that government should do more," I tell him.
"We don't like the state involved in family life," he replies in my new video, but "they're leaving children in dangerous situations."
Lots of parents abuse kids, even when they are on Child Protective Services' radar.
Maybe it happens because child welfare workers are told, "Whenever possible, keep families together."
That's U.S. policy, and Keller says it wrecks lives.
But Columbia Law School professor Josh Gupta-Kagan wants welfare workers to take fewer kids from their homes.
"The horror stories go in all directions," he says.
In Massachusetts, after parents brought their young son to the hospital with a fever and X-rays revealed an old, healing rib fracture, child welfare workers took both him and his brother away from their home. They returned the boys after four weeks, but those were a traumatic four weeks.
It happens because American law requires social workers, doctors, nurses, teachers, and other professionals to report anything suspicious. Those who don't report may be fined or even jailed.
Recommended
Gupta-Kagan says this leads health care workers to report too many instances of possible abuse.
"See something, say something. It's surveillance, investigatory, and sometimes it leads to an unnecessary separation." Those can be as traumatic as abuse.
"About 37% of all children are going to be the subject of a CPS hotline call. Fifty-three percent of all African American children. ... Where my clients live ... the CPS agency is a constant presence. ... Folks are scared of them."
"We certainly don't want a situation where we're going to say, 'We're not going to protect this child because he is African American,'" replies Keller. "But 2,000 children a year are dying in their homes, and most of those are known to Child Protective Services."
Gupta-Kagan disagrees: "I don't think I've seen any evidence that removing more children from parents saves lives. Child fatality numbers, unfortunately, have remained stubborn."
In 2023, more than 100,000 kids were taken from their homes. Still, about 2,000 die from abuse or neglect.
Child welfare workers are overwhelmed.
"Millions of CPS hotline calls coming in," says Gupta-Kagan. "If you want to find the needle in the haystack, we have to stop putting so much hay on the stack."
Texas recently changed the definition of "neglect" to say that kids must be in "immediate" danger of harm before a child can be taken.
As a result, Texas now has far fewer children removed from their homes.
Keller calls that a mistake. "By the time a child is in imminent harm, they've already suffered so much trauma."
Keller, who has been a foster parent himself, wants more kids taken from their biological parents and put in foster homes, sooner.
"That child only gets one childhood. We need to make sure that that child is in a safe, loving, permanent home as quickly as we can."
That's a noble goal. It's horrible when kids are abused.
But some foster parents are abusive.
This is one conflict where I have no idea who is right.
Government is best when it governs least.
But when children are abused, we want the government to step in.
What do you think?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member