Parent Rights are Human Rights

On Facebook, I saw a poster from the Love And Iron Project, that said “Parental rights are HUMAN rights.” It’s wonderful to see this. The Canadian Equal Parenting Council support this concept and the sentiment.

CEPC has been promoting the idea of a balance of rights and responsibilities for parents since 2004. Our position is in direct contradiction to former federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon who stated in 2003 that “in regards to their children, parents have no rights, only responsibilities.” In spite of CEPC appeals to subsequent ministers of justice, what appears to be a policy of extermination of historically recognized rights by the federal government has not been withdrawn or changed. No other group in recent history has had their rights so publicly denied, abrogated and removed as parents.

It is CEPC position that such denial of rights violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada’s commitments in various UN Conventions and the Bill of Rights.

If you have only responsibilities, but no rights, then you are a slave. To compare, written into the divorce act is the provision that judges and lawyers cannot be held responsible for their decisions in the family court system, i.e. they have rights to make decisions regarding the children of parents, but no responsibility for the outcomes. If you have rights but no responsibilities, then you are a tyrant.

The family law system is, as Eric Tarkington points out, a feudal system, with judges acting like feudal lords, able to take your children away at any time, for virtually any reason.
If parental rights are human rights, then the family courts are depriving parents of rights without due process of law. Equal parenting reforms are like a “Magna Carta” to restrain the feudalists from violating basic human rights of parents.

Taking a person’s child is such a terrible punishment that due process must include all of the protections we grant to alleged criminals, that is, the presumption of innocence (which would be equaled by a presumption of parental fitness), the right to confront accusers, the right to counsel (and if a parent cannot afford counsel, government must provide competent counsel), and fair and consistent rules of evidence and procedure.

That is why the CEPC is seeking reform of law and procedure so that no parent loses a child without due process, and a presumption that both parents remain as equals in the child’s life unless proven unfit to a clear and consistent standard.

The power differential is so large and unfair between parents and the profiteering legal profession, their co-conspirators, state actors & their agents – judges that only a strong and high standard for parental rights can stand against the abuse of power by the family law industry.

The human rights argument for parental equality is only one among many, perhaps not the most important one, but it is one that tells us much about the draconian power that family courts and state bureaucracies want to maintain over our families.

We call upon all parents and their supporters to spread the message that “parent rights are human rights”. Write to your political representatives and tell them. Write to the media and tell them. Call in to radio shows.

Blog it. Tweet it. Put in on your facebook page.

“Parent rights are human rights.”