Ethical Issue :

1. After you have read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”: https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail.pdf Discuss the difference between just and unjust laws as outlined by Dr. King. Include a quote from the portion of the letter in your text book that you determined best characterized just and unjust laws.

Look for good ethical conduct as well as Bad ethical conduct. Use your own words. so the ethical issue is between the paragraphs State the main ethical issue State the issue in question format – Should? Or what should? Bold print the ethical issue. Properly state the ethical issue: be impartial Write one issue.

Answer:

In “letter from Birmingham jail” by Martin Luther King Jr a distinction between the just laws and unjust laws have been analyzed by the writer. In the letter, according to King (3) “a just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” This sentence can be considered as providing the best distinction between the just and unjust laws. According to King (3) the laws uplifting the personalities of a human being can be considered as just and those laws that are degrading towards the personality of the human being is considered as unjust (Xiong). In his words, individuals are morally responsible to obey the laws that are just and subsequently avoid the unjust laws. An example for such unjust law was provided by the author of the letter as any code which is inflicted on a minority by the majority population of a country which the majority does not follow by itself. A just law, however, can be said to be such codes that not only the minorities but the  majorities are also compelled to follow. He was further seen as comparing the unjust laws with the laws introduced by Hitler in Germany making it illegal for aiding any Jew. Concluding the letter the author is of the opinion that the unjust laws, by providing a contrast between the groups of people, are downgrading towards the individuals (Mingo 683-717).

On October 3^rd 2019, the American Bar Association published an article where it was rendered that the F.I.R.S.T Clinic will use legal services to keep children in their respective families. In the United States Children’s Bureau report 2017 it was seen that almost 250,000 children in the country are present in the foster care system every year. The article also provided that most of these children are lost forever in the foster system as in many instances they are not informed about the outcomes of the case and are victims of abuse and neglect in the system. The main ethical issue that can be raised in context of the article is whether there should be a proper procedure for helping the children who have been removed from their families by the child care to return to their families?

Reflection to the Ethical issues

I believe that the absence of the proper procedure for helping a child to get back to his parents and family is the most important ethical issue presented in the article. Most of the children in the foster care system do not have a right to proper counsels, and do not have any way of returning to their families, which I believe can cause the child to be suffering from a long-term trauma that affects both the physical and mental health of that child. According to my belief it is an obligation of the workers in the foster care system to keep the children up-to-date with the decisions of the hearings, which in many cases they fail to do. This negligence in their parts cause detrimental effects towards a child in both physical and mental capacity (Bell).

Works Cited

Americanbar.org. “Using Legal Services To Keep Children In Families: The F.I.R.S.T. Clinic”. Americanbar.Org, 2019, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/childrens-rights/articles/2019/fall2019-using-legal-services-to-keep-children-in-families/

Bell, Margaret. Child protection: Families and the conference process. Routledge, 2018.

King Jr, Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham jail.” UC Davis L. Rev. 26 (1992): 835.

Mingo, AnneMarie. “Just Laws, Unjust Laws, and Theo?Moral Responsibility in Traditional and Contemporary Civil Rights Activism.” Journal of Religious Ethics 46.4 (2018): 683-717.

XIONG, LI. “American Thought Embodied in “Letter from Birmingham Jail”.” DEStech Transactions on Social Science, Education and Human Science meit (2018)