Parents Who Feed Kids a Vegan Diet May Risk Jail in Italy Under New Law
ROME — If parliamentarian Elvira Savino has her way, Italian parents who insist on a vegan diet for their children will risk up to four years in jail.
Savino, from the conservative Forza Italia party, has put forward a law that would hold parents legally responsible for feeding their children on "a diet devoid of elements essential for healthy and balanced growth," according to its text.
"I have nothing against vegans or veganism as long as it is a free choice by adults," she told Reuters on Wednesday, days after she presented the proposed law in the lower house Chamber of Deputies.
"I just find it absurd that some parents are allowed to impose their will on children in an almost fanatical, religious way, often without proper scientific knowledge or medical consultation," she said.
Some pediatricians advise against feeding children on a vegan diet, which they say can lack sufficient nutrition.
Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, or poultry and vegans also do not eat animal products such as eggs and dairy foods.
The law proposes jail sentences of a year for raising a child on a vegan diet, up to four years if the child develops a permanent health problem and up to seven years if the child dies as a result.
It would apply to children under 16 and penalties would increase by a year if the child is under three.
Savino, 39, who has a seven-year-old son and who eats meat "but not too much," said she proposed the law after being shocked by several recent incidents in Italy.
Last month in the northern city of Milan, doctors determined that a one-year-old boy who was taken to a hospital had the weight of a three-month-old because of a vegan diet.
In 2015, an Italian court ordered a divorced mother to stop raising her 12-year-old son on a vegan diet after the boy's father filed a complaint that it was stunting his growth.
"If even only one child ends up in a hospital because of this behavior, I feel we have to protect them all," said Savino, noting that she believes pediatricians should be obliged to report vegan parents to authorities just as they would if they noticed signs of physical abuse on a child.
The draft will be discussed by parliamentary committees before it goes to the floor for a debate expected this year.
I read this article the other day and the main thing that struck me was how powerful government is that they can rule over parents like this, let alone our own bodies.
I think parents should be fined for feeding their kids mcdonalds, and any other processed crap that harms our children.
Thank you for sharing yet another example of a nanny state
Talking about nanny, I'd wish this woman was my nanny when I grew up, trust me, I wouldn't be vegan in that case, hahaha
hahaha I feel you
Thank you for commenting on my article, I really appreciate your opinion :) I agree with you
:) :)
I think it's actually quite bizarre and disturbing that this might actually happen. Parents' should be fined for malnourishing their children, be that on a vegan diet or as an omni. Whatever the dietary choice a parent makes it can be considered an imposition to the child?! Government so desperate to condemn the vegan lifestyle, with no consideration of the earth and its inhabitants, simply because animal agriculture is an incredibly profitable industry for them... and I suspect that's all they care about ponders...
Exactly!
What the hell does this have to do with a plant-based diet?
These parents perhaps didn't feed them adequate amounts of whole foods, perhaps it didn't have to do with diet at all.. there's a shitload more kids that do get fed animal products that end up in hospitals for similar reasons.
In fact animal products have shown to be causing most of the main western disseases, while a whole-food plant-based diet has shown to be able to prevent and even reverse most of these disseases.
Research has shown a vegan diet is good for all stages of life, from children, pregnant women to athletes.
This woman complains that people that don't want to cause suffering force their will upon their children, while she wants to force those people to pay for the killing and enslaving of animals to feed it to their kids, even if those kids don't want to eat it, they have to, cause they're not consenting adults and else they can't possibly be healthy according to this enlightened woman, while science tells differently. no shit you shouldn't neglect your children and feed them garbage or let them starve.
Why when you're acting different from the masses is it considered religion that you force upon your kids, while when you go along with culture, without fundamental evidence, but just habit it suddenly is not.
People being brain washed and it is not surprising with messages like this. But it's not like the government doesn't have a motive for suppressing the vegan lifestyle :/ ....
It's sad and scary because with the focus being on bullshit like this, genuine cases of abuse and neglect go unnoticed and unresolved every day, and I don't really have faith that the government even care...
Sad :(
Just like emily said people are being brain washed nowadays so.. I think governments just take advantage of this to sort of do whatever they want. Pretty sad, yes