Allan questions Dworkin's analysis from the opposite direction when he suggests that the position of the Williams Committee may be not so far removed from that of Dworkin.
Dworkin has argued that a distinction should be drawn between holding a moral position and mere prejudice or emotion ( Dworkin, 1977: ch 10). In his essay on pornography, he does not explain whether a claim to 'moral independence' requires holding a 'moral position' and whether an individual who wishes to indulge in pornography can be said to hold such a position.
See O'Neill ( 1992), arguing that rights analysis fails to account for 'imperfect obligations' towards children and Raz ( 1984b), who argues against a rights-based foundation of moral obliga- tion. I agree, but argue that thinking that children have rights can significantly influence the content of the obligations held to be owed towards children.
This argument has serious implications for the way in which courts make many decisions about children. On the view taken here, it is insufficient to base a decision on broad welfarist grounds. For a fuller discussion, see Eekelaar ( 1991b:136-8; 1991c:386-9).
But see Morgan ( 1990) who proposes that abortion may sometimes be justified on the ground that this is in the best interests of the child in question on analogy with withholding life-sustaining measures from living children. The idea that people might be entitled to cause the death of others because they think that is in those others' best interests is perhaps the most dangerous form of welfarism. In r e J [ 1990] 3 All ER 930 the Court of Appeal authorized the withholding of life- sustaining measures from a severely brain-damaged child on the basis of the 'assumed point of view of the patient', rather than of the decision-makers.
There may be no significance in the decision to express those interests in the language of rights, whereas other interests, such as that of protection against sexual exploitation and abuse, are found within the imposition of various protective duties upon States (Art 34). The creation of such specific duties might also, then, be thought of as expressing rights.
In 1991 a call was made that a Children's Rights Commissioner should be established in the United Kingdom, Rosenbaum and Newell ( 1991).
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Publication Information: Book Title: Children, Rights and the Law. Contributors: Philip Alston - editor, Stephen Parker - editor, John Seymour - editor. Publisher: Clarendon Press. Place of Publication: Oxford. Publication Year: 1992. Page Number: 235.
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