UNCRC – Imminent Threat

Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, declared last week that the Obama administration is looking for ways to ratify the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child).

The Obama administration’s operational strategy is to appeal to peer pressure.  We are embarrassed to be the only nation besides Somalia that hasn’t ratified the treaty, aren’t we?  No.

The mistaken focus is on the means, rather than the end.  If there are facts about how American and Somalian children are poorly treated due to the countries not ratifying this treaty, please come out with them. Otherwise, this argument doesn’t explain why we should ratify this treaty.  (And by the way, ParentalRights.org explains that Somalia doesn’t really have a formal government that can ratify the treaty anyway).

Why should we ratify? Has the treaty made a difference elsewhere? Belgium is a UNCRC ratifier, but seems to have some serious problems (as reported by the Telegraph):

Euthanasia is currently permitted on infants, and more than half of the Belgian babies who die before they are 12 months old have been killed by deliberate medical intervention.

In 16 per cent of cases parental consent was not considered.

This is a moral outrage.  And we are preached at to join the child rights treaty Belgium is under.  So what will the treaty do?

To find out, read the 20 things you need to know about the UNCRC, including both that it has been used to condemn optional sex education in schools and it mandates (see Article 3 of the treaty) the best interests of the children to be a primary consideration for all private and public social welfare institutions “in all actions concerning children.” 

This practically means that government can determine the best interests of children and enforce its view as a primary (perhaps the primary?) consideration on these other institutions.  This treaty will give the “liberals” a great leg up in raising your kids as they see fit.

Also, consider that Britain has adopted a report stating that local authorities should have the right to access the home and speak alone with children in homes where children are home schooled.  This was justified using the UNCRC.

Here is another reason the administration could be pushing this treaty:

International human rights law is a peaceful but powerful instrument of change.  In essence, human rights is about peacefully redistributing unequal power. The essence of economic and social, and to an extent cultural, rights is that they involve redistribution, a task with which, despite the vision of human rights, most constitutional courts and regional and international tribunals are distinctively uncomfortable.

That’s a quote from Geraldine Van Bueren, an original drafter of the UNCRC, whose “writings have been cited in courts around the world, most recently by the Constitutional Court of South Africa and the European Court of Human Rights.”

If you oppose this treaty, please do two things:

1.  Sign up for e-mail updates from ParentalRights.org
2.  Contact your Congressperson, Senators, and President to voice your opposition.