The parent is correct. It is sad that this is necessary. Similarly, the bill of rights was almost not included at all, because the original premise was that you had ALL rights that were not specifically prohibited in the constitution. That the bill of rights has turned out to be necessary at all, is also sad.
I am thankful for this law, and for the bill of rights, but it is sad that we require either. We were not supposed to.
I don't understand the issue. Do you agree that child abuse should be a crime? If so, do you think you could correctly define it in legally precise language on the first try, with no unintended consequences? Legislators are human and make mistakes. It's good that they're proactively considering potential unintended effects of a law, and it's not that sad that they didn't get it exactly right the first time.
You'd have the same issue even if there weren't a specific child abuse law. Does letting your 8-year-old walk to school alone count as "general harm"? What about leaving them home alone for a day? A week? A month? Who gets to decide? If the law doesn't specify, the police and the courts decide. And if the police start making decisions that the public disagrees with, then we pass new legislation to clarify what exactly counts as general harm.
It's not different. If police started arresting people for letting their adult mentally handicapped dependents do reasonably independent things, then it might be a good idea to pass some legislation to modify the relevant law.
It has to be separate because your responsibilities towards your kids are different than your responsibilities towards other people. There are things you can do to your kids you can't do to other people (e.g. grounding). There are things you can't do to your kids that you can do to other people (e.g. refuse to provide shelter).
That's not limited to children, your parents with dementia may have diminished capacity. Age is a trap as not all 16 year old children are capable of taking care of themselves for a weekend alone, but many are.
You're missing it. If the original law is overbroad, it makes sense to modify the original law, not pass a second law adding exemptions where it doesn't apply. If something as innocuos as letting your kids walk home was "endangerment", there are still other, equally innocuous things that qualify as endangerment but aren't covered by this exception. In other words, if the standard is wrong, change the standard (but keep it uniform), don't add (non-uniform) exceptions for the examples that showed the standard was wrong
I think it's very hard, if not impossible, to write the kind of uniform standard you're talking about. I feel pretty confident that if you came up with an example standard, we could both easily come up with unintended effects and unclear gray areas.
Yes, otherwise this new law would be unnecessary. Utah has a child abuse law, and saw that other states were overreaching with similar laws. So they're passing new legislation to amend and limit their own existing child abuse law.
I don't know the history of Constitutional philosophy among the unwashed masses, but my anecdata suggests that the backwards understanding of the Constitution exists at least in part because of the Bill of Rights.
"... all rights *that are not outlawed". Many institutions have the capacity to regulate law. So if a lower ranking level would out-law, the top level might need to correct.
I am thankful for this law, and for the bill of rights, but it is sad that we require either. We were not supposed to.