When Spanking Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws (American and Somali) Will Spank!

Kate Tuttle — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:31:00 GMT

Last week I wrote about the death of an Indian schoolgirl due to corporal punishment, which got me reading about corporal punishment rules worldwide, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), an international treaty that has been signed by 193 of the world's countries -- that's every member of the United Nations save two. Guess who hasn't signed it yet? The United States -- along with that bastion of human rights, Somalia.

This week conservative parenting guru John Rosemond had an editorial in the Washington Times about how the US needs to stand strong against signing the UNCRC, because he feels it would erode the rights of parents. Because there's been an influx of new political pressure to sign the treaty now that Obama's in office (clearly Bush was never going to sign it), he urges readers to seek more information and then to "call or write to your senators and let them know how you would like them to vote should ratification come to the Senate floor. Given that ours is still a government of, for and by the people, let us pray that the people make themselves heard!"

Shockingly enough, I totally agree. But first, read more about the UNCRC and figure out what you want to tell them when you call. If you are eager to preserve your right to spank your child, you may urge them to vote no, when and if it comes up. But first read it yourself; you may find that you like what it has to say. A sampling, and this is what I found when visiting the site Rosemond himself recommends, a site opposed to the UNCRC:

Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children.
A murderer aged 17 years, 11 months and 29 days at the time of his crime could no longer be sentenced to life in prison.
Children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion.
The best interest of the child principle would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent’s decision.
A child’s “right to be heard” would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed.
According to existing interpretation, it would be illegal for a nation to spend more on national defense than it does on children’s welfare.
Children would acquire a legally enforceable right to leisure.
Christian schools that refuse to teach "alternative worldviews" and teach that Christianity is the only true religion "fly in the face of article 29" of the treaty.
Allowing parents to opt their children out of sex education has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC.
Children would have the right to reproductive health information and services, including abortions, without parental knowledge or consent.

This is meant to be scary stuff! But to me -- and to the people of Canada, Mexico, England, Australia, all of Western Europe, all of Africa, all of South and Central America, etc. -- it sounds pretty reasonable. Clearly numbers 4, 5, and 7 are kind of red herring-ish (we have a busy enough court system as it is). But just as clearly Rosemond and his ilk find it scary to contemplate a nation in which children are free from physical punishment, free to choose their own religion, and free to learn about sex, science, and other religions -- not to mention one which supports children's welfare with more than just rhetoric.

Sounds like a country that truly would leave no child behind. What a huge step forward it would be if we could join the rest of the world in that goal.

The Guy's Kind Of A Jerk, But He's Got a Point

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The Trouble with Safe Haven Laws: Some Thoughts for National Adoption Month

Shannon LC Cate — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The recent spate of older child and even teen abandonments in Nebraska under its non-age-specific (but soon to be made age-specific) "safe haven" law has called such laws into question among people who had not previously given them much thought. The abandonments have also raised serious questions about the quality and availability of assistance to families in trouble.

In some quarters, there has long been opposition to safe haven laws, regardless of the age limits they include.

Ethicanet.org, an organization committed to being "an impartial voice for ethical adoption practices worldwide" has a strong statement opposing safe haven laws. While that may sound counterintuitive, Ethica's argument is quite compelling. In addition to finding a lack of evidence that the laws have prevented any dangerous or deadly child abandonments, Ethica believes that:

"[T]hese laws do nothing to address the crisis situations birth parents are faced with that lead them to take such desperate measures....Instead, the laws are far more likely to be used by those who would not have otherwise abandoned a child or by those who unscrupulously want to avoid a paper trail for reasons that have nothing to do with child welfare...There are no safeguards to ensure that the person abandoning the child is actually the mother or father of the child. The child could be abandoned by a controlling grandparent or an abusive boyfriend...a mother could abandon a baby without the consent of the father, who might have chosen to parent the child or to have the child cared for by family members."

There is concern among ethical adoption advocates that the safe haven laws simply open up a loophole through which unscrupulous, possibly black-market baby brokers can slip away from legal oversight. But as an adoptive mother whose children have access to their first ("birth") mothers, the issue that most concerns me about these laws is the effect they ultimately have on the children abandoned anonymously.

Ethica points out that the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child insist that children's identifying information be protected whenever possible, not to mention that governments do everything possible to preserve original families and see that children be raised within them as a preference to adoption by "strangers." To deprive children of "access to information regarding their families, their heritage, their culture, and the circumstances surrounding their birth" is to deny them their basic human rights while also harming them by removing all chance of knowing their family medical history or of having a relationship with biological family members in years to come, should both parties desire it.

This lack of records for the abandoned child is what most trouble Bastard Nation, the advocacy organization for adopted people, which has long lobbied for the opening of court-sealed adoption records at the request of adult adoptees:

"Bastard Nation believes that it is no coincidence that Safe Haven laws have been enacted just as the efforts of Bastard Nation and other adoptee civil rights activists have begun to overturn archaic state laws which seal our records from us....Safe Haven laws, we believe, are simply a tool to codify secret relinquishment and adoption."

Ethica recommends that rather than spending money on passing, establishing and promoting safe-haven laws, states use those resources to educate and counsel women in crisis pregnancies, to assist families in desperate circumstances and to improve healthcare and access to it.

Obviously I realize that there are times when children must be adopted by "strangers" as my own children were. I also realize that in some times and places, circumstances are such that children are abandoned and lose access to personal information most human beings take for granted. But these are tragedies and should not be encouraged or promoted by laws that are supposed to increase the safety and well being of children. This country does have the resources to prevent most child abandonments through health and family services. When adoption is necessary we should be putting those resources towards ethical adoptions that are truly in our precious children's best interests.

Strollerderby : united nations convention on the rights of the child

When Spanking Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws (American and Somali) Will Spank!

The Trouble with Safe Haven Laws: Some Thoughts for National Adoption Month