Individual and Institution in Politicized Family Choice

and how the tension between them affects everything, from home education and schooling to personal faith and organized religion . . .even life and death.

NHEN.org Legal & Legislative Forum

In news coverage of the Schiavo case, one story detailed its individual versus institutional tensions, and even showed them reversing position over time. I wonder if the personal and institutional tensions in education are having a similar reversal, from similar influences:

* involvement with a “cult of experts” who may not agree between
themselves or with family members, and whose professional interests can
conflict with individual or family interests,

* mistrust of strangers and large, impersonal institutions;

* subjective personal standards of morality, pragmatism and respect for
human life and dignity, coupled with a sense that one’s personal views
are too important for “compromise” of any sort;

* lay people latching onto complex (or misleading, even purposely false)
ideas and information spread across the Internet, ideas and information
fiercely held beyond all reason;

* the pendulum-swing nature of institutional change and public opinion;

* the rule-making, objectifying, standardizing thrust of government in
even the most personal, private human decisions;

* and as always — love and money, of course.

[In its 2007 poll, PDK blatantly describes education as money, not love. School authorities say parents, teachers and the public "have no choice" about that --]

Even as Doctors Say Enough, Families Fight to Prolong Life

NYT March 27, 2005 by Pam Belluck

BOSTON, March 26 - For years, when families and hospitals fought over how to treat critically ill patients, families often pressed to let their loved ones die, while hospitals tried to keep them alive. But in the last decade or so, things have changed.

Now, doctors and ethicists say that when hospitals and families clash, conflicts often pit families who want to continue life support and aggressive medical care against doctors who believe it is time to stop. . .