The idea of universal human rights has some difficulties, perhaps the most interesting of which is the question of just how universal these rights are. If they are universal human rights, then they must extend to the entire class of humans regardless of age. The idea of natural rights, in a Rothbardian sense, is based upon man being a rational animal—an animal capable of petitioning for the rights of his humanity.
The question I am asking is this: if these rights belong to humans universally, then why are children allowed to be treated as the property of parents? Using rights as a means for sorting aggression from defensive action, it seems to me that it would not be hard to make a case that a parent violates a child’s rights in all sorts of ways. Put differently, if a parent treated an adult in the same way that he treats his child, then certainly there would be legal charges made against that parent—and, in line with this theory, we may rightly say so. However, given the universality of these rights, how can we account for the relationship of the parent toward the child without accusing the parent of aggression?
One attempt was given by Benjamin Tucker. He believed that the child was very much the property of the parent. The ownership of the parent over the child was so extensive that, should the parent cast the child into the fire, it would be wrong for anyone to restrain him from doing so. While Tucker’s commitment to biting the bullet of his presuppositions is noteworthy, he undermines the notion of universal human rights—or, at the very least, restricts the class of humans in a way that excludes children from that class. Neither of these is a good option.
The difficulty of children, and when—or even how—they obtain rights, may seem trivial, but it is a fundamental problem facing philosophers and the Church.
Many in the Church have answered the question of children’s rights in a way similar to Tucker. The rights of children are said to be non-existent from birth and sacrament. Rather, it is argued that as the child grows into mental maturity, his rationality increases to the point where he becomes an intellectual animal capable of petitioning for and expressing the rights of his nature. Outside of the ability of expression, no rights are to be afforded to the child. On this worldview, the rights and responsibilities of man are determined by the expression of the individual.
Enlightenment-style rationalism has, in large part, won the day by fundamentally altering the Christian understanding of sacramental theology. Rights from birth have been replaced with rights from reason. The sacrament of baptism is a new birth—a regeneration, an ingrafting—the point at which one receives a new family and a new Father. With this new birth come new rights and responsibilities. The modern evangelical position on baptism is effectively this: it is a sacrament made effective through the human power of cognition, and until the rights of baptism are clearly petitioned for by the recipient, we cannot hope to know what their rights actually are. Until that point, we cannot know what our proper relationship with them really is. Like the rationalists searching for universal rights, they see children as only “potentially” rights-bearing men.
The rights of sainthood are not essentially established by human rationality, and should our minds be dimmed by age, we are not thereby cut off from union with Christ. The rational expression of such rights is not essential to the possession of those rights. Sacraments are given to the weak. If rationality is the primary qualification, the weakest family members become excluded from the table. Much like Tucker’s position, the children are thrown into the fire by their parents, and no one can stop them.