Children’s Rights and Community Well-Being

Abstract

Why would anyone, anywhere, question the importance of protective rights for children? Why would anyone, anywhere, question the profound effect children’s rights have on community well-being? In this column, Dr Keenan describes the history and current status of children’s rights and challenges us to advocate for fuller implementation of those rights based on well-established principles that are based in good public policy and science. Clearly, children do not have the ability to make all the decisions affecting their optimal health and life success. Adults must decide how children are cared for and how we should vest authority and power to ensure that every child’s best possible outcome is achieved. Concerns should exist when policies and governmental structures become repressive and become exploitive. Children everywhere deserve to be treated as valued members in society and, when developmentally possible, participate in making life choices to their own benefit. —Jay E. Berkelhamer, MD, FAAP Editor, Global Health Monthly Feature Pediatricians and other advocates for the well-being of children often frame their efforts and concerns in the context of children’s rights. The following is a brief discussion of the history, status, and relevance of the push for public acknowledgment of children’s rights. Formal acknowledgment of the rights of children can be traced to the assertion of the natural rights of children by Thomas Spence, … Address correspondence to William J. Keenan, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Saint Louis University School of Medicine, 1465 S Grand Blvd, St Louis, MO 63104. E-mail: keenanwj{at}slu.edu