Abstract

Justice requires that the significant differences between the way contemporary American law treats children and adults be grounded in some morally relevant difference between them. ;The Supreme Court has generally cited three commonly held beliefs about how children are different from adults: their vulnerability to harm, their lack of mature judgment, and the importance of the parental role in their lives. ;This dissertation argues that, granting the courts those differences, as well as principles of justice considered to be absolute in adult contexts, decision-making in children's rights cases is rife with inconsistencies. ;The decisions are not consistent in cases involving children and adults who are physically incapacitated. They are not consistent in cases involving children and adults who are mentally incapacitated. Finally, on either of the legal system's interpretations of the parental role, many decisions in children's rights cases violate fundamental constitutional principles. ;The basis of the inconsistent decision-making is determined to be the presumption that children as a class are utterly "different," and that, therefore, their rights can be granted or withheld according to an entirely different standard. ;Finally, a solution to the problem of children's rights is located in the legal doctrine of suspect classes