- Email: [email protected]
Round the World
1019
regular clinic attenders at home during a crisis. This year the rate of referrals has risen sharply, but many families need no further contact after a problem is solved, secure in the knowledge that the service can help again if necessary. Several children have died, but I see the parents occasionally because death does not always end the need for help. I am prepared to see children with every possible type and combination of physical and mental disability. It is vital to know whether the illness is progressive, stationary, or hereditary, in order to anticipate the parent’s questions about the future care of the child. Although the clinic is mainly an advisory one, I weigh and measure children and carry out clinical vision and hearing tests
now
exploring
the
possibility of a children’s
centre.
Its purpose
provide an advisory centre for parents and field workers, a comprehensive assessment centre for pre-school children, and a small, residential family-rescue service. Such a would be to
will stand independently of the individuals who work therewhich is very important: professional support by one adviser cannot be sustained over a long period because of staff changes. Child disability is a long stress for parents and its duration cannot be accurately predicted. It is essential that the service should give "strength to the parent’s arm". The final aim of a supporting service should be that it will be outgrown and discarded like a rocket gantry. centre
when necessary, because some parents will not take their disabled young children to well-baby and toddler clinics. As a sessional clinical medical officer my other duties include a weekly session at a school for slow learners, two weekly sessions at a primary school and nursery in an adjacent health district (when my perspective is restored by the refreshing normality), and a monthly clinic held at a treatment centre for multiply handicapped children. These duties as a medical officer bring me regularly into contact with the paediatric and special education departments, where relevant problems can easily be discussed. In Essex, the health, education, and social service departments are
I gratefully acknowledge the help of Dr M. J. Hodgson, specialist in community medicine (child health), Essex Area Health Authority, Dr A. J. Franklin, consultant paediatrician, St. John’s Hospital, Chelmsford, Prof. K. S. Holt, Director, The Wolfson Centre, Institute of Child Health, London, Dr R. E. Nottidge, family practitioner and trainer in general practice, Chelmsford, and the many members of the remedial professions, social service, and education departments who have given me unstinting help.
Requests for reprints should be addressed to M. Massey, Brentwood, Essex CM15 OEJ.
P.
MCG, Rectory House,
Stondon
Round the World From
our
Correspondents
United States CHURCH AND STATE
MANY of the early settlers from Europe were victims of religious persecution and those who drew up the constitution of the United States resolved that Church and State should be separated and remain separate. The churches have had spiritual freedom to follow their own teachings and dictates and they have enjoyed certain taxfree privileges, so long as they eschewed politics and did not run businesses for profit. But these benefits have never satisfied all of those in the churches who desired to enforce views beyond the bounds of their adherents’ immediate acceptance; and so religion impinged on politics. The power of religious bodies in this country has in times past been enormous-in prohibition, censorship of books and films, and education.
Radio and television have had their influence. Radio, in the late ’30s and’40s, gave much publicity to various religious speakers who claimed to be ultra-patriotic, but became critics of democracy, strongly anti-semitic, often anti-Negro, and who used questionable methods to urge their beliefs on the people of this country. They were isolated individuals whose aims, methods, practices, and propaganda were strongly disavowed and denounced by their own church leaders and by the great majority of those faithful to the teachings of the Christian religion. As many have noted, they gained their influence largely because their propaganda was directed to the supposed defence of the American family against all those-Jews, Negroes, Communists, liberals, and aliens-who were, it was said, undermining the family and its influence on children. Today, television provides a further attraction for those individuals who seek to put pressure on politicians and hence the public, believers and non-believers alike, in the cause of religious objectives. Such
activity is giving concern to some religious leaders, to politicians, and to lay people for whom it clearly violates the principle of the separation of Church and State. One recent focus has been a partly medical issue-abortion. Cardinal Madeiros in Boston sought publicly to persuade Roman
_
Catholics to vote against those Congressional candidates who believe that women should be allowed to make their own choice on abortion. He did not succeed and his action aroused widespread criticism. In other places, Catholic opinion on abortion has been reinforced by fundamentalist evangelical forces which may reflect an even stronger tendency to reduce the separation between Church and State. Again, the emphasis is on the protection of the American family from its supposed foes: anti-semitism is reappearing; and the anti-Negro slant in the arguments is sufficiently evident for the Negro Congressional Congress to call on all black people to oppose them. This reaction is not surprising, since, by the case presented, all religious and moral values seem to be reduced to stark political options; and it is the values of right-wing conservatives which are being offered. They are, they claim, pro family, pro life, and pro morality, against abortion, against the Equal Rights Amendment, against sex education, drugs, pornography, detente with Russia, the new Department of Education, and cuts in defence expenditure. They have little or nothing to say on commitment to justice or to liberty (save for those who support their own views), or on welfare and the support of the sick and the poor: and little of the vast sums of money they raise seems to go to any charitable cause.
Many deeply religious people are gravely concerned by these attitudes and actions. For, if history teaches us anything, it is that when any religion anchors itself to the temporary political secular orders of this world it is courting disaster. In the end, the Church and not the State is the loser. Those medical men and women who are disturbed believe that the viewpoints thus expressed are also anti-intellectual and anti-science, and, if they prevail, they must powerfully affect the practice of medicine. The churches involved may stand to lose materially as well as spiritually. The American Civil Liberties Union has in the past tried unsuccessfully to challenge the tax-exempt status of various churches and it is not inclined to make fresh moves at this juncture. But its staff counsel has called the action of Cardinal Madeiros an abuse of his church’s tax-exempt status-as an attempt to influence politics-and some of the evangelical advocates have far exceeded the Cardinal. Public sympathy may be against the churches on their tax-exempt status, because, in some areas, religious groups own much property, free of tax, and an increased burden is laid on local taxpayers, who may be only to willing to claim that the Church-State separation is being violated.
regular clinic attenders at home during a crisis. This year the rate of referrals has risen sharply, but many families need no further contact after a problem is solved, secure in the knowledge that the service can help again if necessary. Several children have died, but I see the parents occasionally because death does not always end the need for help. I am prepared to see children with every possible type and combination of physical and mental disability. It is vital to know whether the illness is progressive, stationary, or hereditary, in order to anticipate the parent’s questions about the future care of the child. Although the clinic is mainly an advisory one, I weigh and measure children and carry out clinical vision and hearing tests
now
exploring
the
possibility of a children’s
centre.
Its purpose
provide an advisory centre for parents and field workers, a comprehensive assessment centre for pre-school children, and a small, residential family-rescue service. Such a would be to
will stand independently of the individuals who work therewhich is very important: professional support by one adviser cannot be sustained over a long period because of staff changes. Child disability is a long stress for parents and its duration cannot be accurately predicted. It is essential that the service should give "strength to the parent’s arm". The final aim of a supporting service should be that it will be outgrown and discarded like a rocket gantry. centre
when necessary, because some parents will not take their disabled young children to well-baby and toddler clinics. As a sessional clinical medical officer my other duties include a weekly session at a school for slow learners, two weekly sessions at a primary school and nursery in an adjacent health district (when my perspective is restored by the refreshing normality), and a monthly clinic held at a treatment centre for multiply handicapped children. These duties as a medical officer bring me regularly into contact with the paediatric and special education departments, where relevant problems can easily be discussed. In Essex, the health, education, and social service departments are
I gratefully acknowledge the help of Dr M. J. Hodgson, specialist in community medicine (child health), Essex Area Health Authority, Dr A. J. Franklin, consultant paediatrician, St. John’s Hospital, Chelmsford, Prof. K. S. Holt, Director, The Wolfson Centre, Institute of Child Health, London, Dr R. E. Nottidge, family practitioner and trainer in general practice, Chelmsford, and the many members of the remedial professions, social service, and education departments who have given me unstinting help.
Requests for reprints should be addressed to M. Massey, Brentwood, Essex CM15 OEJ.
P.
MCG, Rectory House,
Stondon
Round the World From
our
Correspondents
United States CHURCH AND STATE
MANY of the early settlers from Europe were victims of religious persecution and those who drew up the constitution of the United States resolved that Church and State should be separated and remain separate. The churches have had spiritual freedom to follow their own teachings and dictates and they have enjoyed certain taxfree privileges, so long as they eschewed politics and did not run businesses for profit. But these benefits have never satisfied all of those in the churches who desired to enforce views beyond the bounds of their adherents’ immediate acceptance; and so religion impinged on politics. The power of religious bodies in this country has in times past been enormous-in prohibition, censorship of books and films, and education.
Radio and television have had their influence. Radio, in the late ’30s and’40s, gave much publicity to various religious speakers who claimed to be ultra-patriotic, but became critics of democracy, strongly anti-semitic, often anti-Negro, and who used questionable methods to urge their beliefs on the people of this country. They were isolated individuals whose aims, methods, practices, and propaganda were strongly disavowed and denounced by their own church leaders and by the great majority of those faithful to the teachings of the Christian religion. As many have noted, they gained their influence largely because their propaganda was directed to the supposed defence of the American family against all those-Jews, Negroes, Communists, liberals, and aliens-who were, it was said, undermining the family and its influence on children. Today, television provides a further attraction for those individuals who seek to put pressure on politicians and hence the public, believers and non-believers alike, in the cause of religious objectives. Such
activity is giving concern to some religious leaders, to politicians, and to lay people for whom it clearly violates the principle of the separation of Church and State. One recent focus has been a partly medical issue-abortion. Cardinal Madeiros in Boston sought publicly to persuade Roman
_
Catholics to vote against those Congressional candidates who believe that women should be allowed to make their own choice on abortion. He did not succeed and his action aroused widespread criticism. In other places, Catholic opinion on abortion has been reinforced by fundamentalist evangelical forces which may reflect an even stronger tendency to reduce the separation between Church and State. Again, the emphasis is on the protection of the American family from its supposed foes: anti-semitism is reappearing; and the anti-Negro slant in the arguments is sufficiently evident for the Negro Congressional Congress to call on all black people to oppose them. This reaction is not surprising, since, by the case presented, all religious and moral values seem to be reduced to stark political options; and it is the values of right-wing conservatives which are being offered. They are, they claim, pro family, pro life, and pro morality, against abortion, against the Equal Rights Amendment, against sex education, drugs, pornography, detente with Russia, the new Department of Education, and cuts in defence expenditure. They have little or nothing to say on commitment to justice or to liberty (save for those who support their own views), or on welfare and the support of the sick and the poor: and little of the vast sums of money they raise seems to go to any charitable cause.
Many deeply religious people are gravely concerned by these attitudes and actions. For, if history teaches us anything, it is that when any religion anchors itself to the temporary political secular orders of this world it is courting disaster. In the end, the Church and not the State is the loser. Those medical men and women who are disturbed believe that the viewpoints thus expressed are also anti-intellectual and anti-science, and, if they prevail, they must powerfully affect the practice of medicine. The churches involved may stand to lose materially as well as spiritually. The American Civil Liberties Union has in the past tried unsuccessfully to challenge the tax-exempt status of various churches and it is not inclined to make fresh moves at this juncture. But its staff counsel has called the action of Cardinal Madeiros an abuse of his church’s tax-exempt status-as an attempt to influence politics-and some of the evangelical advocates have far exceeded the Cardinal. Public sympathy may be against the churches on their tax-exempt status, because, in some areas, religious groups own much property, free of tax, and an increased burden is laid on local taxpayers, who may be only to willing to claim that the Church-State separation is being violated.