A recent article in Time magazine urged President Obama to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (the CRC) which calls for every child’s right to survive and thrive; access healthcare and education; be protected from violence, exploitation, and abuse; and participate in decision making.
Its supporters say it’s vital for the U.S. to get behind children’s rights, especially at a time when street children are a common sight and children are not even guaranteed the right to play safely outside. Opponents of ratification say that the U.S. should not be signing and investing in treaties that cannot be enforced and that are merely aspirational.
Is there a solution? One way is to interpret the CRC as requiring conditions that approximate the CRC standards before parents bring children into the world (a process called “temporalizing’), and requiring the requisite shift in resources and access to family planning to help parents. Sound familiar? The Having Kids model effectively does the same thing as we try to plan for the best possible world for us and our children.