Just out of curiosity, is there somewhere in either of those UN declarations that defines “parents” as a child’s biological mom or dad or both? Otherwise, I don’t think any single parent or gay couple with children would disagree.
Here is an expert from Lord Blackstone, author of "Commentary on the Laws". This was one of two books (the other being by Coke) that lawyers during our founding were required to study completely:
THE duty of parents to provide for the maintenance of their children is a principle of natural law ; an obligation laid on them not only by nature herself, but by their own proper act, in bringing them into the world : for they would be in the highest manner injurious to their issue, if they only gave the children life, that they might afterwards see them perish. By begetting them therefore they have entered into a voluntary obligation, to endeavour, as far as in them lies, that the life which they have bestowed shall be supported and preserved. And thus the children will have a perfect right of receiving maintenance from their parents. And the president Montesquieu has a very juft observation upon this head : that the establishment of marriage in all civilized states is built on this natural obligation of the father to provide for his children ; for that ascertains and makes known the person who is bound to fulfil this obligation: whereas, in promiscuous and illicit conjunctions, the father is unknown ; and the mother finds a thousand obstacles in her way ; --- shame, remorse, the constraint of her sex, and the rigor of laws ; --- that stifle her inclinations to perform this duty : and besides, the generally wants ability.
Mostesquieu was author of "Spirit of the Law" the most widely read philosophical work of our founding generation.
This is the price children pay:
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census)
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes
85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: Center for Disease Control)
80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes (Source: Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol. 14, p. 403-26, 1978.)
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)
75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes (Source: Rainbows for all God`s Children.)
70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988)
85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home (Source: Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections 1992)