It’s a Human Right to Kill the Unborn but not to Teach Her

What is a “human right?” In several Western nations, it is no longer considered a human right for parents to raise their children in the way they want. Instead, the State has usurped that right. A Christian couple had recently found an uneasy asylum in the USA, lest their children be taken away by the German State:

• The Christian couple [Uwe and Hannelore Romeike] faced increasing fines and the threat of losing custody of their children after they decided to homeschool in 2006. The family settled here in Morristown, Tenn., where they knew another German family. They soon applied for asylum, arguing that they couldn’t return to Germany because they feared persecution for their religious-based determination to homeschool. An immigration judge granted the family’s asylum request in 2010…But the Obama administration appealed, and the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the Romeikes’ asylum win. The case is set to continue on April 23 in another hearing at the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio.

Clearly, our administration doesn’t regard parental rights as unalienable human rights. Meanwhile, they have invented a broad array of their own “human rights.” Our former Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton had consistently proclaimed that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” Consequently, homosexuals are all guaranteed asylum here.

Ironically, the same secular thinking declares that it’s a human right to murder the pre-born, but it’s not a human right to raise and instruct the post-born.

What then is a human right? Here are several considerations:

“Human rights are commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being” (Wikipedia). However, there must be an Agent that establishes these “inalienable fundamental rights,” as rights that trump whatever the State might determine. Without the authority of God, human rights would be no more authoritative than a herd of cows universally thinking that they have a right to not be eaten, however understandable such thinking might be.

Everything in this world is alienable – a mere matter of molecules in motion. It is only the Transcendent that can give and enforce human rights. It is noteworthy that all of the major world religions recognize parental rights, while they don’t recognize abortive or homosexual rights.

The Bill of Rights – the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution – grants parental rights through its “free exercise” of religion clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” However, the Constitution contains not even a whisper about abortive or homosexual rights!

States Rights. Only nine states out of our fifty have passed SSM. The other 41 have rejected SSM. Furthermore, “Pro-abortion forces by the end of 1972 had won in only four states the virtually unrestricted abortion that Roe v. Wade would soon mandate for the nation [in 1973]” (World, May 4, 2013, 80). Clearly, these “rights” were not deemed rights by either the majority of the states or by popular vote.

Rights Based on Nature. There is nothing natural about abortion or homosexuality. However, all nature testifies to the self-sacrificial behavior of parents for their children. They know how to love them better than the State or unnatural and temporary modern couplings. Besides, gays have a much lower lifespan and higher incidents of depression, substance abuse, domestic violence, and suicide, even in countries that are far more accepting of their lifestyle than the Christian lifestyle. Therefore, the gay lifestyle is not conducive to child-rearing.

Rights based on Historical Considerations. Homosexuality has often been tried, but it has never survived for long. Historically, it seems to be a suicidal, lacking any historical continuity, suggesting that it is endemically flawed.  What lifestyle then promotes a nation? John J. Davis (Evangelical Ethics) wrote of the work of British Anthropologist, J.D. Unwin:

• After a comprehensive study of both Western and non-Western cultures throughout human history, Unwin concluded that the record of mankind “does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it had been absolutely [heterosexually] monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.” Unwin observed that a society’s adoption and maintenance of heterosexual monogamy as a social standard “has preceded all manifestations of social energy, whether that energy be reflected in conquest, in art and sciences, in extension of the social vision, or in the substitution of monotheism for polytheism.” (p. 116)

On what then are abortive and gay rights based? Militant demands alone! While our administration is aggressively pushing abortive and homosexual rights – even internationally – it is attacking human rights. Just this past week, the Pentagon announced that Christians who evangelize could now be court-marshaled. 

Similarly, chaplains who continue to call homosexuality “sin” are being threatened with disciplinary action. So much for our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech! Clearly, the Pentagon has no problem with evangelizing in favor of its own agenda - homosexuality.

Why the hostility towards the Christian faith? Jesus claimed that “The world…hates me because I testify that what it does is evil” (John 7:7). Why should it matter what we have to say? To the world we are just narrow-minded fundamentalists. What if we do call homosexuality and abortion “sins”? Why should it bother them so much? I think it’s because they know that we’re right!

Creationism, Child Abuse, and the Hubris of Modernity

The present age always thinks that it is the most enlightened. If you lived in the 17^th century, you would think that the people of the 16^th century were merely uneducated heathens. It is no different for us in the 21th century, who regard the ideas of former centuries as asinine, whether we have solid evidence for this judgment or not. Our 21^st century pundits conveniently overlook our current ills – the proliferation of crime, abortion, pornography, sex trafficking, drug and alcohol addiction, STDs, economic exploitation and collapse and environmental problems. Nevertheless, we are the greatest generation, and therefore, we know best and can tell, even coerce, others to live according to our philosophy!

Theoretical physicist, Lawrence Krauss, is convinced that he knows better than the best. On a talk show, he declared that the teaching of creationism is a form of child abuse (and, of course, child abuse must be addressed as a criminal matter).

Needless to say, in order for such a judgment to stand, Krauss has to redefine “child abuse” as “putting children at a disadvantage compared to others.” He explains that by teaching children creationism, they will “go through life believing a myth and not learning those things that are really crucial.”

Interestingly, this definition of child abuse can be applied to anyone who teaches anything incorrect to children. Consequently, every teacher is guilty of child abuse! And any textbook author should be found guilty of child abuse, whenever it is found that the textbook requires correction.

However, is creationism – the idea that the universe was created by a superior intelligence – really a myth? On the contrary, many reputable scientists have gone on record that creationism is the most logical understanding.

Creationism has only one competitor – naturalism. According to naturalism, the universe sprang “naturally” into existence, uncaused out of nothing. However, research has yet to show how the world of matter and energy can originate uncaused and how it can come out of nothing. Perhaps equally damning is the resort to “natural causation.” This raises many unanswered and perhaps unanswerable questions. How can natural laws provide any explanation, when they too didn’t exist prior to the universe? Is such a concept even coherent?

Our laws operate uniformly and immutably throughout the universe. How can this be possible if they are bound up with a universe which is always moving and always changing – molecules in motion? And how could they have originated in an explosion – the big Bang? From a scientific perspective, explosions don’t create order; they destroy it! And why are the formulas that describe the operation of these laws so darn elegant?

These observations should lead us to at least consider the possibility that instead of being natural (embedded in mature), they are transcendent and the product of intelligence. However, any rational consideration of these questions has been banned from the university, where, even raising these questions, can ruin careers.

In light of this, perhaps Krauss and the vast majority of the university community are guilty of child abuse through teaching the myth of naturalism? I wouldn’t suggest such a thing. Instead, science will do best when it isn’t encumbered by a politically correct straight-jacket. If we are convinced of the superiority of our theory, them we should open the windows to serious scrutiny and the free exchange of ideas. However, this is precisely the thing that is now forbidden. Instead of the free and honest exchange of ideas, Western society increasingly criminalizes unpopular theories and views with such charges as “child abuse.”

Are children who are taught creationism missing out, as Krauss maintains? Was there a flowering of science and scholarship under communism, the quintessential anti-creationist states? Hardly! Instead we find that science experienced its modern renaissance through creationists. British scientist Robert Clark sums it up this way:

• “However we may interpret the fact, scientific development has only occurred in Christian culture. The ancients had brains as good as ours. In all civilizations—Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, India, Rome, Persia, China and so on—science developed to a certain point and then stopped. It is easy to argue speculatively that, perhaps, science might have been able to develop in the absence of Christianity, but in fact, it never did. And no wonder. For the non-Christian world believed that there was something ethically wrong about science. In Greece, this conviction was enshrined in the legend of Prometheus, the fire-bearer and prototype scientist who stole fire from heaven, thus incurring the wrath of the gods.” (Christian Belief and Science, Henry F. Schaefer, 14)

I can hardly imagine Isaac Newton charging his parents with “child abuse” for teaching him creationism! However, Krauss likens parents who teach creationism to the Taliban who teach violence and repression. Perhaps instead, the censorious, repressive Krauss bears a greater kinship to the Taliban than the creationist.

The interviewer subsequently asked Krauss, “Who gets to determine what is good for children?” Krauss seemed to be discomforted by this question. It uncovered another dilemma for him. If he answered, “The parents must ultimately determine,” this undermines everything he had been saying. However, if he answered, “The State,” his whole enterprise begins to look quite sinister. He therefore answered:

• We need to educate people…Society has an obligation…

In other words, “The State must reign supreme in these matters.” Indeed, there have been addictive or sexually abusive parents, and society has had to intervene. However, ordinarily, the West has recognized that children were the provenance of their parents, and they thrived maximally when in the hands of those who loved them and would die to protect them.

In contrast, the State doesn’t have a good track record as the ultimate care-giver. When the State took ultimate authority – think Hitler Youth or Stalin Youth - it never benefited the children.

Krauss charges that allowing children to be removed from the public school system in favor of home-schooling is not being fair to the child. In other words, he wants to see home-schooling banned in favor of a uniform system of compulsory, centralized, monopolistic education.

Krauss’ views would be laughable if it wasn’t for the fact that many others agree with him. For example, Germany has banned home-schooling:

• The Supreme Court of Germany declared that the purpose of the German ban on homeschooling was to "counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies." (LifeSiteNews, 2/14/13)

After all, the State knows best – better than the parents. However, has the State been able to demonstrate that they can do better than the parents? Not at all! It has been repeatedly shown that home-schooled children do far better than the average on standardized testing. Instead, as Germany admits, the real issue is philosophical conformity – control!

In lieu of prison, one German home-schooling family has fled to the USA, where they are seeking asylum. However, it seems that they have sought asylum in the wrong place:

• The Attorney General of the United States thinks that a law that bans homeschooling entirely violates no fundamental liberties.

Sadly, this seems to be a harbinger of what we can expect here – an increasingly totalitarian State that has little interest in maintaining diversity of opinion and religion.

Homeschooling and its Threat

Homeschoolers are facing intense persecution in manycountries:

• Despite the fact that his children passed difficult government imposed tests, and even qualified for law school at the ages of 13 and 14, homeschooler Cleber Nunes and his wife Bernadeth have been slapped with fines equivalent to a total of $3,200 for refusing to submit their children to the Brazilian school system.

In Sweden, homeschoolers are facing even more intense persecution:

• A leader of Sweden’s Liberal Party last week called for a change in the country’s social services law so that the government can take children away from home-schooling families more easily by allowing social workers to do so.

• The call for the change comes amidst already stringent penalties in Sweden for home schooling. The Home School Legal Defense Association and Alliance Defense Fund have applied to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of one family whose child was abducted by the government in 2009 and have filed a brief in a Swedish appellate court on behalf of another family fined an amount equivalent to $26,000 U.S..

• “The right of parents to choose the kind of education their children receive is a fundamental human right recognized in international legal documents including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said HSLDA attorney Michael Donnelly. “Sweden has lost its way and is ignoring basic human rights joining Germany in repressing educational freedom. It’s important that free people stand up to governments who persecute their own people.”

Sadly, the USAseems that it might also follow the same trajectory as it pursues a greater educational role for the State at the expense of parental rights:

• The New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld a lower court order Wednesday that sided with the father of a homeschooled student and forced her into a government-run school against her Christian mother’s wishes.

Although the court claimed that it wasn’t considering the “larger religious liberty and homeschooling concerns,” this claim is suspect. First of all, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney John Anthony Simmons, who represented the mother, who is divorced from the father, claimed that:

• Because no harm was demonstrated and the girl was acknowledged to be academically superior and socially interactive, even by the court, Simmons argued that the homeschooling arrangement should not have been changed.

Even more suspect is the lower court rationale:

• In July 2009, Judge Lucinda V. Sadler reasoned that the girl’s “vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.”

However, there is no evidence to support the court’s claim that the girl is suffering any deprivation as a result of homeschooling. Instead, the court’s judgment reflects secular hubris - that the State is a better judge and provider of what children need than the parents. But what are the facts about homeschooling, and shouldn’t these govern the State’s decisions?

• In 2007, the Home School Legal Defense Association commissioned Dr. Brian D. Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute to conduct a nationwide study of homeschooling in America. The study’s purpose was to develop a current picture of homeschool students and their families—capturing their demographics and educational background—and analyze the impact of certain variables on homeschoolers’ academic achievement. Dr. Ray collected data for the cross-sectional, descriptive study in spring 2008. The 11,739 participants came from all 50 states, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

• In the study, homeschoolers scored 34–39 percentile points higher than the norm [50%] on standardized achievement tests. The homeschool national average ranged from the 84th percentile for Language, Math, and Social Studies to the 89th percentile for Reading.

This strongly argues against the contention that the State knows best and can provide what’s best for the children. The study also showed that it didn’t matter if the parent was a certified teacher or if homeschooling had been supervised by the state had no significant effect upon the academic outcome. Interestingly, socio-economic family status didn’t impact academic outcomes.

In another study conducted by Ray in 2003, over 7,300 adults were surveyed who were homeschooled:

• Over 5,000 of these had been home educated at least seven years, and the statistics in this synopsis are based on their responses.

• Over 74% of home-educated adults ages 18–24 have taken college-level courses, compared to 46% of the general United States population.

• Homeschool graduates are active and involved in their communities. Seventy-one percent participate in an ongoing community service activity compared to 37% of U.S. adults of similar ages. Eighty-eight percent of the homeschool graduates surveyed were members of an organization…compared to 50% of U.S. adults…Only 4.2% of the homeschool graduates surveyed consider politics and government too complicated to understand, compared to 35% of U.S. adults.

• 95% of the homeschool graduates surveyed are glad that they were homeschooled. In the opinion of the homeschool graduates, homeschooling has not hindered them in their careers or education. Eighty-two percent would homeschool their own children. Of the 812 study participants who had children age 5 or older, 74% were already homeschooling.

According to Wikipedia,

• Numerous studies have found that homeschooled students on average outperform their peers on standardized tests…In the 1970s Raymond S. and Dorothy N. Moore conducted four federally funded analyses of more than 8,000 early childhood studies, from which they published their original findings in Better Late Than Early, 1975. This was followed by School Can Wait, a repackaging of these same findings designed specifically for educational professionals.[24] They concluded that, "where possible, children should be withheld from formal schooling until at least ages eight to ten."

Wikipedia also admits that

• While there is no specific evidence to suggest that abuse among homeschoolers is more pervasive or severe than other institutions.

Why then the opposition?

• Stanford University political scientist Professor Rob Reich (not to be confused with former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich) wrote in The Civic Perils of Homeschooling (2002) that homeschooling can potentially give students a one-sided point of view, as their parents may, even unwittingly, block or diminish all points of view but their own in teaching.

However, if diversity is truly Reich’s concern, it would seem that he would be a champion of alternatives to the monolithic state controlled system.

• He also argues that homeschooling, by reducing students' contact with peers, reduces their sense of civic engagement with their community.

However, this contention is invalidated by Ray’s surveys. Why then the hostility against homeschooling? Is it that homeschooling presently lies beyond the influence of secularism?