A child’s rights

In my previous column, I argued that rights were essentially negative, not positive. I said that we don’t so much have rights to certain things–that, instead, we have rights not to have certain things done to us. There are some objections to this view, of course.

For example, someone might ask, “What about the classic rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”? What about the rights to freedom of speech and religion? Are these legitimate positive rights?

They certainly appear to be at first glance; yet in reality, they must ultimately be construed in negative terms. No one, after all, is actually given life or happiness. No one is automatically given speech or the means of spreading free speech (e.g., printing presses or free air time).

These values must be pursued and achieved by the individual on his own terms and merits. They are never actually given to him (via mandate) by others–so that, in effect, these so-called rights to speech, religion, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness all essentially amount to the individual’s negative right not to be impeded in such pursuits.

Now, we come to the most daunting problem. What about the rights of children? Don’t they have the right to expect sustenance from their mothers? Don’t children have the positive right to essentially be a parasite leeching off the backs of their unwilling parents? Don’t they have the right to enslave their parents for their needs? The answer is no. Even in this case, children do not have positive rights to relief.

I claim this for three reasons: first, because the child’s mother arguably still retains the negative right not to be prevented from executing an abortion; second, because the parents still retain the right not to be precluded from transacting an adoption; and, finally, because the question is badly framed.
The question should not be, “Do children have a positive right to burden their parents?” That is not the issue. They have no such rights.

The question should instead be framed as follows: “Does the parent have a moral obligation to provide for the child?” Which of course they do. The issue in this case is primarily obligation, not rights. Here, we are not so much concerned with the alleged positive right of the infant to demand sustenance from the mother–but rather, with the obligation on the part of the mother to bear the moral responsibility that she herself activated through her actions (sexual conduct). Or, to be more accurate, we might say that this is a situation whereby the obligation of the parent gives rise to the child’s negative right not to be deprived of that implicit contractual obligation.

Now, I know what my opponents are likely to say at this point: “But what about the poor and disabled? Don’t we have a moral obligation to provide them with relief?”

And the answer, of course, is absolutely not. How can we be responsible for the poor and disabled if we individually did not cause their conditions?

Remember that an obligation is a voluntarily enacted contractual commitment explicitly or implicitly made by a free and un-coerced individual to another party. We simply cannot be involuntarily obligated, because this would, in effect, amount to extortion, coercion or worse–enslavement. We freely choose our obligations through our words (explicitly, through promises) or through our actions (implicitly, e.g., through sex leading up to pregnancy and childbirth).