What about kids already born? Do they have rights?

Children should be seen and not heard. WRONG! I’m taking a stand for youngsters today.

 

I know, arguments are raging these days about when a fetus becomes a person. I’m not talking about unborn children. I’m talking about kids. Youngsters already born, alive, and deserving of rights. They are not chattel. They are human beings, and they do  have rights.

 

In a recent MLive newspaper feature, writer Mathew Miller exposes the disgusting fact that child marriage is still legal in Michigan! What the?

 

The article goes on to cite facts about young teens getting married (almost all of them end in divorce). According to the MLive piece, a union only has to be approved by the parents and a judge. Miller tells of one situation in which a 14-year-old girl was married! Sadly, our state legislature has considered bill after bill to correct this situation, but all efforts to change the state law have failed. Pure Michigan.

 

So, then I start thinking about other ways that we’re not being fair to kids.

 

Earlier I mentioned the abortion debate. Isn’t it interesting (or disgusting) that some hard-liners say that even in cases of incest and rape, impregnated young girls, perhaps as young as 10, should not be allowed to have the pregnancy terminated. (Just wait until something like that happens to their granddaughter!)

 

Other items of mistreatment of young kids in the news: (Sex trafficking --- big story in the news right now, clergy abuse, abuse of native kids in US and Canadian boarding homes, and the flourishing child porn trade.

 

Here in the HFP office we’ve been dealing with the broader topic of juveniles since the Supreme Court ruled that we may not hand these young teens life sentences without parole. This concern doesn’t focus on teens of today, but on those men and women who committed crimes while teens and who now can’t get out of prison. Even though the ruling has been handed down by our nation’s highest court, prosecutor after prosecutor, and judge after judge in Michigan, drag their heels.

 

We can and must do better for our kids!

 

“It never really ends...

Children surviving through the cold winds of neglect, and all kinds of misfortune and vile treatment. We see them every day, with broken smiles that endure the painful kicking of their malnourished bellies protruded with dreams that may never see the light of conception...

But with just a little kind word,

A handful of promise,

A heart of compassion,

A smile full of hope,

We would hold hands together in helping them conceive their dreams...

Because they are the little bits and pieces that make us whole...”

― Chinonye J. Chidolue

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Half-a-race!

The HFP Drag-Racing Fund-Raiser had the potential of being extremely successful, and could have raised several thousand dollars. Let's just say it was partly successful. For background purposes I'll explain that I was racing a 1963 supercharged Studebaker Lark that has a reputation of being one of the fastest stock Studebakers in drag racing today. The engine was built by one of the finest Studebaker engine mechanics in the country, and the car many times has achieved quarter-mile runs in less than 14 seconds! We promised to make at least ten passes in the Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags at Mid-Michigan Motorplex in Stanton, Michigan, this past weekend, and we asked for pledges ONLY ON THOSE RUNS REACHED IN LESS THAN 14 SECONDS. On Friday, here's how we fared: Run #1 13.936 @ 101.24 mph Run #2 14.027 @ 101.30 mph Run #3 14.091 @ 100.88 mph Run #4 13.805 @ 102.84 mph Run #5 14.058 @ 101.26 mph By the 5th run we discovered that ...
Read more

Gregory John McCormick: 1964-2008

Itchy is dead. The lifeless body of this talented rock musician, whose band Shock Therapy was a popular group especially in Europe, was found in a field in Detroit last Wednesday, November 5. The Wayne County Coroner's office informed father Glenn McCormick that the body of his son Gregory, better known to all of us as Itchy, bore no signs of trauma. Glenn said that Itchy, who had been living at his father's dental lab in Detroit, had been drinking to excess for some time. While the toxicology report has not been released yet, the general consensus seems to be that he drank himself to death. Our agency, while still named INNOCENT, first got involved with Itchy in 2005. The Detroit native, who called Germany his home, got involved in some unfortunate activity that placed him in the Michigan State prison system on a charge of arson of a dwelling. It was really just a bonfire in an alley, but an alleged parole violation placed him in prison for 1-20 years. I personally sat w...
Read more

Three lives, connected by a divine thread

My kids say it should be a book! The Doug, Pat and Mark story is a doozie!   About 25 years ago, while fighting to free Maurice Carter from prison, I read a newspaper column written by Pat Shellenbarger of the Grand Rapids Press on the topic of eyewitness identification. I contacted Pat re that story. That led to a friendship between Doug and Pat that continues to this day.   In subsequent months, Pat would go on to assist me in an investigation into the Maurice Carter case that eventually led to solving the crime.  That particular episode became a chapter in my book about the Carter case, SWEET FREEDOM, published in 2006.   Fast forward to 2009, A New York businessman claims wrongful conviction, and while serving time in a Michigan prison is handed a copy of my book. Mark Hartman, who was also convicted in Berrien County, was amazed at the similarity of these two stories and tried to reach out to me. His letters bounced.   Persisting in his efforts to c...
Read more