Are children regarded as inferior to adults in value?

Question

Some Americans have claimed to believe that personal autonomy is the supreme value, higher even then ones right to life. If the life of a dependent person severely impacts the freedom and autonomy of a less dependent person, it is morally acceptable to kill the more dependent one.

Many people don't believe that but I'm wondering just how many believe that and why.

A young child such as a toddler is highly dependent on the parents but adults are less dependent on other people. Is dependency a measure of human worth? Are children and adults regarded as having differing value in contemporary United States society?

Answer 1

Our values in the US are very strongly influence by capitalism, our own particular brand of capitalism.  This even influences religious values, in ways I don't think we fully realize.

In the US, everything is valued based on how much it contributes to the economy.  People who make a lot of money are heroes, no matter how they made that money.  People who aren't able to make lots of money are considered worthless, a drag on the economy.

Kids don't make money, they cost money.  So we don't value them.  Despite all our talk of family values, especially among movement conservatives, children really occupy a low place in our values.  We don't want to invest in schools, we don't want to provide health care for kids. If their parents can't afford it, they don't deserve it.  We LOVE kids as a market, if we can sell something to them whether it's breakfast cereal, video games, or school clothes.  But the kids themselves are not worth a lot to us.

Not that we think it's fine to kill them, that's a little rough.  But whether they grow up healthy, educated, useful members of society, that's up to them and their parents, not to us.  We figure why should WE have to pay to educate, vaccinate, and take care of other peoples' children?