A Constitutional Amendment:
The Only Way to Protect Parental Rights to Direct the Upbringing and Education of Their Children

English 1020
May 1, 2008

Outline
Thesis: In order to ensure that parental rights concerning the upbringing and education of their children remain fundamental rights in America, there must be an amendment to the United States Constitution explicitly stating parental rights.
I. Parental rights are not specifically protected under the United States Constitution. A. The Fourteenth and Ninth amendments to the Constitution B. Judicial interpretation of these amendments
II. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
A. What the CRC is
B. What the CRC …show more content…

“If the United Nations committees have their way, the freedom of parents to raise their own children, to shape their behaviors, and to safeguard their moral upbringing will be a relic of past centuries—despite such clear articulation of parents’ rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (Fagan). Why is this a huge problem with grave implications for American families? The CRC includes provisions to protect children from what is considered today as the everyday decisions parents make toward their children. “The treaty would serve to protect these supposed rights of children not against the encroachment of government, but against the encroachment of parents” (Duplantier). There is huge debate among Americans about controversial issues that, until about the last twenty years or so, have not been prevalent public issues. Things like types of sex-education in public schools, whether or not teens should be able to get an abortion without parental permission, should children need parental permission to join a gay-straight alliance at school, do home schoolers need more government oversight, or should home schooling even be legal at all? When did these things become up to the government to decide when, how, and how much exposure kids have to these things? These are major issues that should be taught to children, but in a way