Controversy Across the Globe over a Child’s “Right to Privacy”
A bill in the Wisconsin legislature raised quite a controversy in 2003, sparking a debate over “privacy rights” and parental involvement. The measure would let parents know what books, CDs, and video tapes checked out of public libraries from their children under the age of 16.
Opponents claimed that the measure will harm children by jeopardizing their right to privacy. “It’s a major invasion of the right of privacy of children,” says Rep. Marlin Schneider, an opponent of the bill. “Children need to understand their rights are protected, and if government won’t protect their rights nobody will.”
But state Representative Sheryl Albers explained that the bill is about the ability of parents to be informed about what is going on in the lives of their children. Senator Joseph Leibham, the legislation’s Senate sponsor, agreeed, saying that “this bill provides parents the opportunity to be informed and involved in the lives of their teenage children.”
AN EXPANDING “RIGHT TO PRIVACY”?
The Wisconsin legislature passed the bill in 2003, but the controversy remains. With few exceptions, libraries in the United States are currently prohibited from disclosing any records that indicate the identity of individuals who borrow library materials or use library services: even if the individual is a young child and the inquirer is a parent. Read the rest of this entry »
Keeping with the child-privacy-from-the-parents theme… In New Zealand a 16 year-old girl ran away from home and the parents are trying to find her. The police know where she is but they can’t tell the parents because of “privacy rights of children.”
Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ had this to say in a press release, “Politicians, with the support of the UN, Children’s Commissioner and Youth Law Project to name a few, have sought to increase children’s rights without considering the vital role of parents, and ways of strengthening families rather than splitting them.”
What we are seeing in New Zealand, the UK, and other parts of the world is heading our way. The question is, will we stop it? Will we stand up and fortify the rights of parents for the good of children?
Below is a sad video about a mother who was a victim of domestic violence. Her child was taken as a result and put up for adoption. All of this was done in secret courts in the name of the “best interest of the child.” Don’t think that this could never happen in the United States. We are on the same path and have got to do something to stop it. Abuse does need to be investigated but the burden of proof must remain on the government. Kids staying with their parents is what is in the best interest of the child!
One last quick note, the last good Supreme Court case on parental rights, Troxel v. Granville, involved a mother fighting for her parental rights who was a victim of domestic violence. Even though the mom won that case, there are significant reasons to be worried about the precarious position of the child-parent bond.
Citizens across the United Kingdom are up in arms after learning that the British government has been providing “perverse economic incentives” to social service agencies that remove children from their parents in order to meet adoption quotas.
GOVERNMENT BREAK-UPS
According to British news sources, 30 English councils shared a payout of £18 million this year for meeting Government targets to increase adoptions. This latest news comes amidst new data which shows that although social services removed more than 2.5 times as many infants from their homes (citing safety risks), the number of murders in which the victim was less than a year old has actually increased, not decreased.
According to a senior lecturer in social work at London Metropolitan University, “Performance targets and the tick-box culture are undermining professional judgment.”
PERVERSE INCENTIVES
Similar “incentives” exist in U.S. law. According to the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, federal rules provide “bounties to states of up to $8,000 or more per child for every adoption they finalize over a baseline number,” creating “an incentive to place a child with little concern about whether the placement will really last.”
As a result, “states and private agencies now have financial incentives to keep children in foster care and financial incentives to place them for adoption - but no financial incentives to keep them in their own homes or return them there.” Read the rest of this entry »
From the March/April 2005 Court Report Cover Story
By Michael P. Farris
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a threat that longtime homeschoolers know well. If ratified by the United States Senate, it would ban spanking in our country. Homeschooling would no longer be governed by state law, but by a 10-member committee of child welfare “experts” in Geneva. Even our right to teach our children that Jesus is the only way to God would be in jeopardy.
Aware of this threat, homeschoolers and other parental rights advocates have been ready for battle for some time. In fact, the reason that this treaty was never sent from the State Department to the Senate for ratification, after being signed by then President Bill Clinton on February 16, 1995, is that it faced certain defeat. As a friend of traditional families, President George W. Bush has simply not moved it at all.
However, a new challenge to American families and our constitutional republic has been launched by the federal judiciary. Under a legal doctrine sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court, the federal courts have begun to treat unratified treaties as binding on the United States. Already one federal district court has employed this doctrine to declare that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC or CRC) is binding on the United States even though it has never been ratified by the Senate. Read the rest of this entry »
