Putting Children First

Family policy matters, and engaging in weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council hi this is John Ralston presidency family and were grateful to have you with us for this week's program is our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that you will fold better equipped to be a voice of persuasion, family values in your community, state and nation, and now here's our house to family policy matters.

Tracy David Griggs, thanks for joining us this week for family policy matters. Some conversations about families today focus on the desires and perceived rights of adult, often at the expense of children experience and data are increasingly pointing out the flaws of this adult centered mindset in a new book hopes to reframe that debate. Katie Faust is founder and director of them before us, an organization devoted to putting the focus back on the fundamental rights and well-being of children and it comes to conversations about parenting and family.

Katie began her public campaign to champion the rights of children in 2012 after she worked for the world's largest Chinese adoption agency. She joins us today to discuss her new book then before us why we need a global children's rights movement, Katie Faust, welcome back to family policy matters. Thank you Tracy.

Thanks for letting me chat with your audience will I remember the first time I read about your very simple concept. I'm looking at public policy issues concerning children and families through the lens of what's best for children. It was actually a surprisingly clear way to make decisions on these very complex issues.

So why do you suppose this is such a startling concept in our society today. The concept is that children's right should come before the desires of adult and when it comes to marriage and family issues that goes against pretty much everything. Our culture is promoting right this idea that adults have a right to happiness and we use these kind of terms like they have a right to choose. They have a right to marry Deborah) had, but they don't actually have a right to those they may want and they may desire that they may be desperately pursuing them, but they don't have rights to the but when we look at natural law when we look at the largest treaty throughout the globe. The UN convention on the rights of the child with you that children have a right to their own mother and father, and social science supports that that is the best place for children to be raised in the home of their married biological parent and Is very threatening to any and every adult these days. Whether you're single or married or gay or straight it in for that adults conform to the rights of children and that means adults have to sacrifice an adult have to do hard thing and that is probably one of the most countercultural messages in 2021 America so when did this dramatic shift happen, but I think that a lot of us kind of in the marriage and family world would look back at the dispute over marriage.

The definition of marriage and and when gay marriage first started to be debated, but on the ship actually took place long, long ago back in the late 60s when we started packing no-fault divorce lot where we really started to hear the narrative while at the adult or happy to kids will be happy or could not need a married mom and dad.

They just need to be safe and loved and that name kind of chorus has been echoed through every new iteration of family, whether it was the rise of single motherhood by choice in the 90s through you know the reproductive technology movement, sperm and egg donation that right on the heels of that to the debate about the definition of marriage now and issues like surrogacy and so that legal and cultural shift has been underway for a long time and as far as I can tell, there's no slowing down unless we can really really start to articulate a compelling secular case for why every new iteration of modern family is really just code for child loss. You have to lose something to be in the family and injustice just rattled off several issues this kind of thinking could have a profound effect on let's take one. Could you just talk about third-party reproduction. Tell us how changing the way we think about the rights of children could affect how we think about this, you know. Usually we look at third-party reproduction. The sperm and egg donation are surrogacy. I think especially people in our world. Think about it from the perspective of what this is a way to help infertile couples have children and of course the best kind of in the pro-life world say will that's great because we love baby and so anything that brings about more babies, or help loving people have babies. How could that be a bad thing. And then of course we empathize with the infertile heterosexual couple who desperately want a biological connection to a child and we people of course it makes sense that you'd want to sperm donor because then you get to be pregnant and you get to have a connection with your biological child and no really, it's love that matters into their being raised by a God who is not biologically connected to the deal. And so when we look at it from the adult perspective, people sure no big deal. It's okay until you look at it from the child's perspective right until you recognize and read the stories of kids were created through these arrangements and what we've tried to do, especially in our book, but in all of our work and highlight the harmed and the damage that goes along with Fords and how to lose a relationship with one of the adults to whom they have a natural right there father or mother moment of conception and the identity crisis that many of these kids struggle with the instability that results in the household. The feelings of commodification that they experience knowing that their consumption was a monetary transaction based on the monetary section and of course the often unseen harms and that is the reality that only 7% of children created in laboratories will be born alive. And so when you actually look at the rights of children and their right to life, and then the right to their mother or father.

We see that these technologies are not child friendly and no amount of adult desire or longing or loss ever justify forcing a child to sacrifice their fundamental right show even when it comes to technologies like this that we can be sympathetic towards when we look at the reality of harm to children.

We realize this is something that anybody in the pro-life or profamily world should be endorsing what we give you in this book that you've never heard before. The stories of kids who had to live through it and by the time you're done, you realize there is no way that I can support a lot of these new kind of family arrangement without understanding that kids are going to pay the price was also a weekly radio show and talk to a lot of this is just one of the many ways is educating citizens across Mr. a lot of about policy issues that a lot of families stayed in the nation. God is on just reading for more information about his family and how you can help us to achieve this vision for stated mission is over website and see families on board and see family.org and be sure to sign up to receive our email updates and action alerts course reflection publication family North Carolina magazine.

We also look for you to follow us on Facebook and Instagram one you prefer to reframe this whole question rather than debate these conversations about family structure. What's the value there. I am happy to debate. Let's make that come here because we have the best research we have the best studies we have common sense we have natural design. We have biology major religions on our side when it comes to questions of the mother, father, child bond and the importance of marriage between a child's mother and father, but what we don't want to do is play walkable with all of these different topics right and that's a lot of times how conservative Christians pro-lifers profamily people have responded all definition of marriage will elect response that and then here's commercial surrogacy and that Dr. different response. No.

All of these different issues. Everything that have to do with marriage and family, polygamy, cohabitation, marriage, divorce, sperm and egg donation surrogacy even adoption.

All of those issues are not separate conversation. They're all one conversation and that is are you respecting or are you disregarding the rights of children and soak through the book. Especially, we have really tried to offer people when we don't have to come up with all these different disparate responses. There is one question that needs to be at the forefront of our mind and that is children being respected or not, because if the rights of children are respected in personal decision and policy decision you are going to come out with the right conclusion every time so that the lens that we try to eat people when their filtering through these different questions about marriage and family. Sometimes people see so many needs on so many different planes and they don't feel like one small thing that they might do writing a letter or going to visit a legislator would have an effect but but it does doesn't it, when it all adds up. It does, and there's lots of ways to do this.

One of the biggest ways is okay.

Think of it this way we can get incredible gains in the pro life meant because we have focused exclusively on the child's right to life same kind of impact. When we focus on child's right to their own mother and father. There are hundreds of incredible pro-life organizations out there fighting for child's right to life in the womb them for us is the only organization that is fighting for children's rights on this side of the this is the next frontier of the children's rights battle and we have made it easy.

I hope to see why this matters. I'm giving you the tools that you need to advocate, but also to have these conversations with friends, a lot of these conversations need to take place on your Facebook thread and even in conversations with people at church or people sitting poolside with you or at soccer practice and so we want to equip you to be a children's rights kit read the book once you really are familiar with these arguments. These studies and especially the stories of kids to be armed, to be confident in your to be able to take this message to whatever corner of the world you inhabit and that is really where the work can begin. And of course this is very important in regard to the health of children, but but there's more on the line as well write the decline of the family unit has been linked over centuries, to the strength of of our society or civilization has absolutely been a little bit of time in chapter 1 where we outline why children have a natural right to their mother and father. The harms that go along with mother and father lost talk about the harms that children experience that their disproportionate risk for when they are for example father less massive increase in child poverty teen suicide teen homelessness teen incarceration teen pregnancy, high school dropout. Every single issue that we are spending millions and millions and billions of dollars fighting really comes down to the defendant children's right to their own mother and father, and if you could remedy that children could be raised by their married mother and father, we would decimate nearly every social issue that we are facing today and if you can't do that then you just need to resign yourself to building more prisons spending more money on welfare spending more money on antipoverty programs spending more money on public school counselors who are helping kids through all of these traumas and failing because the reality is that no school, no head start program, no prison, no amount of counseling can ever remedy this problem because the state cannot love a child and that is what mothers and fathers provide great. They are the best chance that the child is going to be love. Be safe, be protected be provided for so nobody can get anything they want. Neither, on the left nor on the right. Unless we can defend children's fundamental rights to their own mother and father were just about out of time. Unfortunately, for this week. But before we go to the house besides getting a copy of your book. Where can people go to stay connected with you and see what you're doing.

You can go to them before us.com the very bottom of the homepage, you can subscribe to our newsletter and stay up on all of the different legislative effort. Where were writing letters to legislators to make sure that they can to the rights of children and staff on all the new stories for publishing all of the news headlines that were covering.

That's a great place to just keep your knowledge fresh. The book is the best resource on that is where you will find the mountain of evidence in stories and we've really tried to lay it out, both as a book that is easy to read but also the reference we really tried to take every major issue in question that have to do with marriage and family right there in the detailed table of contents even go to directly to the area you know that you need that moment, so we want you to be equipped we want you to stay abreast of everything were doing. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter come to our website subscribe so you don't miss anything, and of course the name of that book is them before us why we need a global children's rights movement, Katie Faust, founder and director of the organization them before us. Thank you so much for being with us today on family policy matters.

You been listening to family policy matters. We hope you enjoyed the program employed to them again next week to listen to the show on lawn and to learn more about NC families want to inform, encourage and inspire families across been through a lot of our website and see family.award and see family.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family