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A Global Kidnapping

Around the world, the two-person, mother-father model of parenthood is being fundamentally challenged.

In Canada, with virtually no debate, the controversial law that brought about same-sex marriage quietly included the provision to erase the term “natural parent” across the board in federal law, replacing it with the term “legal parent.”

With that law, the power in defining who a child’s parents are shifts precipitously from civil society to the state, with the consequences as yet unknown.

In Spain, after the recent legalization of same-sex marriage the legislature changed the birth certificates for all children in that nation to read “Progenitor A” and
“Progenitor B” instead of “mother” and “father.” With that change, the words “mother” and “father” were struck from the first document issued to every newborn by the state.

Similar proposals have been made in other jurisdictions that have legalized same-sex marriage.

In New Zealand and Australia, influential law commissions have proposed allowing children conceived with use of sperm or egg donors to have three legal parents.

In the United States, courts often must determine who the legal parents are among the many adults who might be involved in planning, conceiving, birthing, and raising a child. In a growing practice, judges in several states have seized upon the idea of “psychological” parenthood to award legal parent status to adults who are not related to children by blood, adoption, or marriage. They have done so even over the objection of the child’s biological parent. Advances in the same-sex marriage debate have encouraged group marriage advocates who wish to break open the two-person understanding of marriage and parenthood.

The National Health Education Standards has gone further and envoked in loco parentis by redefining parents as families. Families have been classified as stakeholders. Children’s stakeholders are being identified as any entity that is seen as a resource in a child’s community.

Quote from NationalGuidelines.org http://www.nationalguidelines.org/guideline.cfm?guideNum=0-12 :

>>Schools often have insufficient resources to provide a comprehensive and multifaceted continuum of interventions. By having direct contact with families and key informants in the community, schools are better able to identify barriers to student success and well-being and better equipped to develop solutions that overcome these barriers. Schools can enhance home-school links by sharing concerns with families and developing solutions that address students’ unique needs.

In addition to the benefits for students’ education and well-being, students’ families, and school staff, there are reciprocal benefits for community agencies who partner with schools. Businesses, the justice system, community health and safety systems, and others may benefit from a healthier population. Community agencies and organizations that provide services to children and families often gain a more visible profile when they become partners with schools.

Examples of neighborhood stakeholders in student health and well-being are students themselves, as well as their families and teachers. Other school staff, community business owners, police, faith-based institutions, universities and colleges, local health departments, health and mental health service providers, dentists, emergency medical services, educators of first-aid, departments of health, justice, education and social services, and other agencies that serve families have stakes in the well-being of the student population and school staff. Communicate regularly with partners and potential partners in order to learn what each has to offer.<<

Do mothers and fathers matter to children? Is there anything special—anything worth supporting—about the two-person, mother-father model? Are children commodities to be produced by the marketplace? What role should the state have in defining parenthood? When adult rights clash with children’s needs, how should the conflict be resolved?