Media accused of misleading people on child rights

I AM very concerned that the Irish media generally appears to be misleading people in relation to the so-called children’s rights constitutional referendum which groups of a certain ideology have been seeking.

In some cases, it is clear that a particular newspaper or TV programme has an ideological agenda which conforms to that of the radical children’s rights lobby. In other cases, which are perhaps even more worrying, it seems those in the media are themselves misinformed or misled by the false assertions of the children’s rights lobby and so simply allow them freely to put forward their position without any questioning of the veracity or reasonableness of what they are saying, while failing to refute false assertions.

Journalism in Ireland has been in a deplorable state for a very long time, but this is an issue that is of very great importance to our society and the incompetence, negligence and, in some cases, ill intent of journalists may influence people to vote for an alteration of our constitution which would do no good and greatly damage the family, marriage and the rights and needs of children and parents.

What is most disturbing is the that the blatantly false assertion by the children’s rights lobbyists, that cases of abuse of children within families would somehow have been prevented or ended sooner were the constitution amended in the manner that they are seeking, is being conveyed as true by much of the media.

This is the most pernicious of assertions which, if many were duped by it, could lead to appalling consequences.

The constitution recognises the fundamental human rights of all children and nothing in it permits, or is conducive to, the wrong done by parents in these cases, or excuses the negligence of state agencies in relation to them (not to mention the moral duty of the wider family, community, etc, to act to protect endangered children).

The constitution cannot be changed in any way so as to give children any more rights than they already have by virtue of being human beings (real human rights cannot in any case ever be conferred by a state, only recognised).

The cases of abuse within the family did not occur or continue because of anything in the constitution, but in spite of it. The power and duty of the state to act to protect children in such situations is recognised by the constitution.

The fact that various state agencies did not act in accordance with their duties in these cases has no basis in the constitution. Such false assertions are but a ruse to get what they know would not be acceptable to the majority of people. What the lobbyists for the referendum are actually seeking is for the constitution to be altered so as to dilute or remove the recognition given to the natural and inalienable rights and duties of parents and the marital family to care for and educate their children without interference from state agencies.

The individuals and organisations behind the push for this referendum want to give the state direct power over children in contravention of the natural (and, hitherto, constitutional) rights of parents. They want to be able to decide what children learn and how they are raised, and by whom.

They want children to become a pawn of the state and to treat them as merely objects to satisfy the desires of adults by permitting such things as homosexual couples to adopt children or to be recognised as the legal parents of a child where the couple have used the gametes of a third party (man or a woman) to create a child.

If the constitution were to be altered in such a radical way, the most basic and inherent rights and integrity of the family, and the children dependent on the good of the family, would be seriously undermined, to the detriment of all society, especially our precious children.

Lynda Finneran

Ivy Exchange

Granby Place

Dublin 1