Protecting Parent-Child Bonds: The 28th AmendmentWhere do you stand on  Protecting Parent-Child Bonds is a question we should be asking to every politician, judge, and family law attorney. It is imperative that we begin setting the expectation in our society that children need to be protected and that children are best protected when the rights of fit parents are protected. No judge and no government agency anywhere on this earth is better situated to protect and nurture a child than that child’s own fit parents.

Too many judges and government agencies are claiming that they know best and that their views should overrule the views of fit parents. What is clear is that the judges are at the heart of a 50 Billion Dollar industry that is driven by these judges taking children from one fit parent and giving them to the other fit parent. This industry thrives despite the opinion of the US Supreme Court that fit parents have fundamental constitutional rights to the care, custody, control, and companionship of their children.

We as a society need to state in a clear and resounding voice that Parent-Child Bonds are essential to our society and MUST be highly protected from government interference. Protecting Parent-Child Bonds: The 28th Amendment is a book and proposed constitutional amendment designed to express this idea in the most profound way available to us as a society, by permanently writing it into our Constitution.

The following is the text of the proposed Amendment.

1.     The most basic form of a protected private family unit is an individual parent and their minor child. The state may neither sever nor cross the boundaries of this family unit, except upon unfitness of the parent. Parent and child share a right to free and equal association with each other.

2.     A parent is assumed to be fit until the state proves that either (a) the parent has exposed the minor child to clear and present danger as a result of the parent’s decisions (b) the parent is incapable of meeting the minimum basic needs of the child for a significantly prolonged period (c) the parent is unwilling to meet the minimum basic needs of the minor child (d) a parent knowingly and intelligently waives their parental rights.

(1) Fit parents are entrusted by nature or the State with determining the best interests of their minor child and must be assumed to be acting in their child’s best interests unless proven unfit

(2) Each fit parent has the equal right and duty to direct and control their minor child’s education, to include educating the minor child through personal example, which arises through routine parenting of the child. The child has a right to receive education from each parent equally. These rights are among the penumbra of individual First Amendment rights.

(3) Fit parents hold equal rights and duties in the care, custody, control, and physical possession of the minor child. Any conflict between these rights must be resolved in as equal a manner as possible.

(4) Fit parents may entrust certain of these rights to others as they see fit without forfeiting their rights.

3.     The rights of natural (biological) parents are neither established nor granted by the State but are self-evident rights that shall be protected by the State and by this Amendment. The State may create legal parents where that creation does not unduly burden the rights of natural parents without their consent to the burden. Once established, except where specifically limited, legal parents are granted protection under this Amendment.

4.     Minor children have the right to be in the care, custody, control, and possession of their fit parents equally, and where no fit parents exist, to be in the care, custody, control, and possession of the State. All other rights with which the minor child is endowed but is incapable of exercising are to be held in trust by fit parents in the first instance and by the State only where no fit parent exists.

5.     Nothing in this Amendment shall be construed as limiting the State from setting minimum, equally applicable, standards or regulation concerning the general health, safety, and welfare of its citizens. When rights between parents are in conflict and the State is asked to intervene, that intervention shall be the least detrimental to these rights. Where a valid question of harm to the child exists, the State may act to protect the child for the briefest time necessary to protect the child from that immediate harm.

If this amendment is of interest to you and you would like to learn more about how the amendment is intended to protect parent-child bonds and how you can advocate for Protecting Parent-Child Bonds you can get a copy of the book Click Here.