At ParentalRights.org, our goal is to amend the U.S. Constitution to protect parental rights. A constitutional amendment is the only way to comprehensively protect the child-parent relationship from unnecessary government intrusion.
Amending the Constitution is a challenging task, and we can't do it alone. Our supporters come from many different backgrounds—uniting for the common cause of protecting parenthood. Everyone has questions about how this will work, why it is important, and what each of us can do to help kids and parents. That's why we have an answer center. Of course, if your question isn't covered here, please send it to us and we will do our best to answer it.
- Why do we need the Parental Rights Amendment?
- What is the background of parental rights in America?
- What are some of the effects of the attack on parental rights?
- How does the United States government treat international law?
- How does the U.S. view of international treaties differ from the rest of the world?
- Why is international law a threat to American parents?
- What is the potential impact of international law on United States family law?
- What is the potential impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?
- If every other nation has signed on to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, shouldn’t the US sign as well?
- I’ve heard some people say that the Parental Rights Amendment will protect child abusers. Is this true?
- How do you amend the Constitution?
- How long will this take?
- How will the Parental Rights Amendment affect me as a parent?
- I want to get involved. What can I do?
1. Why do we need the Parental Rights Amendment?
The right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is presently a fundamental but implied right guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Yet one of the main reasons that parental rights are in danger today is due to their status as implied rights. That's because the meaning of an implied right is never entirely stable. Since parental rights are implied rights, the Court is free to redefine their meaning whenever it wishes. With international law poised to reposition parental rights into mere responsibilities, essentially robbing parents of their rightful place in a child’s life, the parental role and child-parent relationship is more endangered than ever before.
Though they seem effective on the surface, state constitutional amendments and state laws protecting parental rights are both insufficient to fully protect the right of parents to raise their children, for the simple reason that the US Constitution places treaties in a superior position in relation to state laws and constitutions. Additionally, the federal courts can undo any state level effort.
However, if the Parental Rights Amendment passes successfully, the right of parents to raise their children will become an explicit right and receive the highest protection in the federal courts. As an explicit right placed within the black-and-white text of the Constitution, the right of parents to raise their children will be protected by the federal courts as a fundamental right. This will place parental rights in an undeniably superior position to any treaty obligation entered into by the United States—overcoming the threat of international law, and guaranteeing the long-term protection and preservation of parental rights.
2. What is the background of parental rights in America?
In the case Pierce v. Society of Sisters (268 U.S. 510), The United States Supreme Court held that parents have a fundamental constitutional right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.
In this case, the state of Oregon had passed a law that said that all children had to attend public school and that the option of private schools would not satisfy compulsory attendance laws.
In his opinion Mr. Justice McReynolds included these words: "The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations."
By rendering this opinion the US Supreme Court included a parent’s right to direct the upbringing and education of their children within the guarantee of liberty found within the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution. Since that case, the Supreme Court has consistently upheld parental rights.
However, a steady erosion of support for parental rights has been taking place within the federal courts—leaving the child-parent relationship exposed to the eminent danger of government intrusion.
3. What are some of the effects of the attack on parental rights?
For years the fundamental liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children and handle their care, custody and management has been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court. Yet today federal, state and local agencies persist in finding ways to undermine the critically important parent-child relationship.
These actions include removing children from their homes without sufficient cause, intimidating and threatening parents with the loss of their children if they don't cooperate, withholding information from parents about important issues including medical information and relevant administrative information, providing medical treatment or access to prescription medication (such as abortions, vaccinations and contraception) without parental knowledge or consent, interrogating children (in public schools or public places) without parental knowledge or consent and providing information or access to inappropriate information that parents have explicitly forbidden their children from accessing.
Through law and policy, government actors are establishing a new tradition that views government—not parents—as the authority in determining what is in the best interests of children.
Prompt action is imperative to prevent any further erosion of the parent child relationship and its current legal status. That's why ParentalRights.org exists.
4. How does the United States government treat international law?
Article VI Section 2 of the United States Constitution makes treaties signed by the United States the law of the land—equivalent to Acts of Congress and subordinate to the text of the Constitution only. This means that international treaties are, in effect, superior to the laws of states and their judicial systems. Treaties are approved pursuant to Article II Section 2 by the President, with approval of two-thirds of the United States Senate.
If the Constitution is silent on a matter then treaties automatically carry the same weight as the Constitution itself. Having been protected for centuries, parental rights are now in danger of being usurped by government control simply because they are not explicitly written into the text of the Constitution.
5. How does the US view of international treaties differ from the rest of the world?
The crucial difference between the US and other countries when it comes to international law is that the US Constitution places treaties in a superior position in relation to state laws and constitutions, making the ratified treaty the law of the land. When the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child seemed poised to come before the Senate in 1995, many senators felt that it was completely incompatible with American law. Ratifying the Convention would mean imposing laws created outside of this country on citizens within this country.
6. Why is international law a threat to American parents?
Most American families do not realize that international law poses a serious threat to family life. International law, specifically the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, may seem harmless on the surface, but it becomes a danger to American parents when federal judges use theories or devices of international law to apply principles that run contrary to established US law regarding parental rights.
The implementation of these principles is accomplished primarily through Customary International Law, a theory which states that if a principle of law is "settled or agreed to" by most countries, it should therefore apply to all countries—regardless of what a particular country has decided. In other words, basic principles of democracy are ignored when an international treaty is recognized over and above US law.
The primary device of international law that could become a threat to parental rights includes most notably, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the United States has signed but not submitted to the Senate for ratification.
Because the United States is a Federal Republic, each State has its own laws regarding the regulation of issues that may arise with the parent-child relationship that might require intervention by the government. When judges use theories of international law to address these problems, they undermine, subvert and circumvent the existing representative civic structures in our land to apply the notions of a non-governmental organization (the United Nations) over our own legislatively determined laws. This is anathema to the integrity of both our national sovereignty as well as our concept of republican government where laws are derived from the votes of representatives of the people.
International law is not formed with the consent of the American people. A threat exists because American judges can use international law to rule on cases that involve families. By using international law to decide domestic disputes, American judges would be violating the fundamental founding principle of self-government on which America is built.
7. What is the potential impact of international law on US family law?
If the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) becomes binding on the United States, the government would have the power to intervene in a child's life for whatever it considers to be in “the best interest of the child."
Currently, the government can intervene in this fashion only by going to court and proving that parents have been abusive or have neglected their children.
But the wording of the CRC dictates that whenever the government believes that your parental choices are not the best, the government would have the power to override your choices and protect your child from you. If this treaty becomes binding, all parents would have the same legal status as parents who have been tried and convicted of child abuse—only without the trial. The government would have the right to override every parental decision if it deemed the parent's choice contrary to what it considers to be the child's best interest.
8. What is the potential impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?
The results of a possible ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child could vary. Depending on Congress’s appetite to pass legislation, it is expected that many new laws would be created to allow the federal government to exercise its "duty" under the treaty. New federal offenses and spending programs to effectuate the Treaty would likely be proposed.
State laws would be subordinate to the treaty under Article 6 of the Constitution. This means that judges in state and federal courts would have to interpret their laws in light of the superior authority of the CRC. It is likely that many state laws could be struck down as a result of this analysis, radically reshaping the rights and duties of parents.
9. If every other nation has signed on to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, shouldn't the US sign as well?
Supporters of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are quick to point out that the US and Somalia (which doesn't have a functioning central government) are the only two countries that have yet to ratify the treaty. The truth is that no other country has a constitution like the United States of America—which places treaty obligations on par with Acts of Congress and immediately upon ratification places the treaty supreme over the laws and constitutions of the states. Additionally, many of the ratifying countries have added their own “reservations” to the treaty which dramatically reduce its impact. Because of the U.S. Constitution’s treatment of treaties and federal case law, reservations are not an option for the United States.
The question that should be asked is this, "Doesn't the United States already demonstrate the proper care of children?" Each state has a legal system that provides for the care of children, determined by the elected legislatures of those states. To bypass these elected legislature and to seek enforcement of an international treaty over the laws of the states runs contrary to the very foundation of America’s constitution and republican form of government.
10. I've heard some people say that the Parental Rights Amendment will protect child abusers. Is this true?
The Parental Rights Amendment will not protect child abusers. "Fundamental" rights are not "absolute" rights: the government can restrict a fundamental right, but only if it proves that it has a compelling reason to do so. Put another way, the government must prove that a parent is "unfit" before it may override the decisions of a parent.
The danger is that government officials are often able to strip parents of their rights without providing proof of unfitness. This is why section 2 of the proposed Parental Rights Amendment requires the government to prove that its interest "is of the highest order and not otherwise served."
State laws that define and punish child abuse will not be affected or altered by this amendment. The only thing that will change is that the state will need to prove that parents are unfit in order to remove their parental rights.
The Supreme Court said in the 1982 case of Santosky v. Kramer, "until the State proves parental unfitness, the child and his parents share a vital interest in preventing erroneous termination of their natural relationship." The Parental Rights Amendment does not protect child-abusers: it protects parents from being treated like child-abusers until the government provides proof otherwise.
11. How do you amend the Constitution?
The process of amending the Constitution is a long and arduous one, but it is not impossible.
Article V of the United States Constitution provides for amendments whenever two thirds of both Houses deem it necessary, or within the context of a constitutional convention formed upon the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states. Once it is ratified by three-fourths of the legislatures or constitutional conventions of the states the amendment can take effect.
The process of amending the Constitution has taken anywhere from under 1 year to over two hundred years (in the case of the 27th amendment that prohibited congressional pay raises from taking effect in the term in which they are enacted). Most amendments proposed in recent history are written with an expiration date so that if they are not ratified within the set time limit, the amendment becomes void.
13. How will the Parental Rights Amendment affect me as a parent?
The Parental Rights Amendment will ensure that our country's current interpretation of parental rights—that parents have a fundamental interest in directing the upbringing and education of their children and a right to the care, custody and management of their children—will becomes an explicit constitutional right, superior to the laws of every state and treaty.
14. I want to get involved. What can I do?
The best way to get involved in the fight to protect parental rights is to sign the petition for the Parental Rights Amendment, and encourage your friends and family to do the same. More than anything else, we need grassroots support to make this amendment a reality. Get involved today!
