I was delighted to hear that the Parent’s Bill of Rights, Senate Bill 77, which the Colorado Senate approved in February, is expected by some to die in the Colorado House, as it would give a blank check to parents to treat their children almost like property.
As Senate Minority Leader Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, claimed, “The bill radically reduces and, in some cases, completely eliminates the rights and protections of the child. To me this looks like a ‘no bill of rights’ for kids.”
I agree.
As a lifelong advocate for the rights of children both at home and abroad, I wish I were empowered to design and implement my own bill of rights for children. Here’s what it would sound like:
I demand the right not to be physically or sexually abused by strangers, by clergy, or by parents, foster parents or others I trust and who profess to love me.
I demand the right, if my parents separate or divorce, to have equal time with both my mom and my dad, as long as each is deemed fit to be a parent.
I demand the right to a roof over my head and at least one hot, nutritious meal a day.
If my parents work, I demand the right to a safe, loving and mentally stimulating child-care center or preschool program starting at infancy, as that’s when my emotional attachments form and my brain is growing by the hour.
I demand the right, if brought to this country early in my life by parents who are undocumented, to have as equal an access to higher education as my friends whose parents are citizens.
I demand the right, if I am legally adopted, to stay with the parents I love and who love me, and not be returned to my birth mother who gave me up, based on a legal technicality or simply because she decides she wants me.
I demand the right to be allowed medical care, whether it be vaccinations against disease, mental health treatment if I need it, and pregnancy prevention if I want it.
I demand the right to have firearms locked safely out of my reach and marijuana edibles removed from my sight and temptation.
I demand the right to go to school as far as my talents will take me, and to attend a school that is safe both from violence and from classmates who have not had their vaccinations. Any disability I might have should not be used an excuse to deny me an education.
I demand the right to have a safe and legal abortion if I am accompanied by a parent or another adult in a position of trust and authority.
I demand not to have my genitals mutilated because my culture promotes it as a way to make me “less promiscuous” and more marriageable.
I demand the right to not be bullied, segregated, castigated or ignored.
I demand the right not to be sold into the sex trade, and I demand the severest penalties for anyone who would engage in the trafficking of any child for any reason.
In the same manner with which persons of all races and faiths have demonstrated against recent atrocities by wearing signs that say “I am Ferguson” and “I am Charlie Hebdo,” I will wear a sign that proclaims: “I am Child. My life matters.”
Dottie Lamm, dolamm59@ , former first lady of Colorado, is a psychiatric social worker who chaired the Governor’s Task Force on Children and Their Families in the 1970s and served on the Health Committee and the Girl Child Committee at two United Nations conferences in the 1990s.
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