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Photo: Yaron Brener
Price of irresponsibility
Op-ed: Parents who leave children unattended in scorching vehicles must be prosecuted
A child is not born into this world with operating instructions attached to his leg. The parent experiences certain anxieties and concerns that do not go away when the child grows up and builds a home for himself. Along with these anxieties, the parent also experiences a great sense of satisfaction and joy; a feeling that the child lives in another room that has been added to your heart.
Bringing a child into the world is a selfish act. The child did not ask to be born. The parents are the ones who made the decision to create life. And in this equation - the egotistical act of bringing a child into the world – parenthood equals responsibility; endless, uncompromising responsibility.
Gay Rights
Ben Ilan
Op-ed: In open letter to PM Netanyahu, gay man demands State of Israel grant him most basic right
Unfortunately, the recurring incidents in which parents forget their children in cars during the hot summer days prove once again that parenthood does not guarantee responsibility. The State must intervene to make certain that a negligent parent pays the price.
Some will say parents who are grieving over a child they forgot in the car suffered enough punishment. Therefore, they will say, there is no need for criminal punishment. After all, people cannot be tried twice for the same crime. But in my opinion, the people making this argument are confusing negligence with irresponsibility.
True, there is nothing worse than losing a child. The parents did not mean to leave the children in the car, and they paid a terrible price for this irresponsibility. They will never hug their children again and will suffer from nightmares. Their lives have changed forever. But these parents must be prosecuted for negligence. When a driver inadvertently kills a pedestrian or causes physical damage, he is tried and punished for reckless driving. The same should apply to parents who leave their children unattended in hot vehicles.
The court should take these negligent parents' suffering into account and sentence them to community service - perhaps even at children's institutions - so they and other parents will understand that they are responsible for the child they brought into this world and will be punished - not just mentally - for any negligence.
