Involuntary Servitude

I. INTRODUCTION

A "psychotherapeutic community" located in New York City's Upper West Side believes that "parent-child bonds... are the root of all evil and the mainspring of psychological maladjustment."' Accordingly, parents who are excessively demonstrative towards their children may have their babies taken from them for foster parenting or adoption by other members of the group. Thereafter, parents' subsequent contact with their children may be limited to closely supervised visits where the parents may see the child but physical contact is forbidden. Would any parent, absent the "psychotherapeutic community's" influence, ever consent to such an arrangement? Two mentally retarded men are found laboring on a farm in poor health, in squalid conditions and isolated from the rest of society. At trial, the evidence shows that the two men worked "seven days a week, often 17 hours a day, at first for 15 dollars per week and eventually for no pay." One of the men had lived and worked on the farm for sixteen years; the other...