The US Senate must NOT Ratify UN Disabilities Convention

As a homeschool Mom with a child with challenges, the vote that is coming up in the United States Senate on December 4, 2012 is especially concerning to me. The Home School Legal Defense Association explains it better than I ever could (below is a portion of their assessment. I have highlighted some sections that I find especially troubling). I urge you to contact your US Senators and ask them to vote NO on the UN CRPD on December 4, 2012.

OneMom

 Problems with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Any remaining state sovereignty on the issue of disability law will be entirely eliminated by the ratification of this treaty. The rule of international law is that the nation-state that ratifies the treaty has the obligation to ensure compliance. This gives Congress total authority to legislate on all matters regarding disability law—a power that is substantially limited today. Article 4(5) makes this explicit.

Article 4(1)(a) demands that all American law on this subject be conformed to the standards of the UN.

Article 4(1)(e) remands that “every person, organization, or private enterprise” must eliminate discrimination on the basis of disability. On its face, this means that every home owner would have to make their own home fully accessible to those with disabilities. If the UN wants to make exceptions, perhaps they could. But, on its face this is the meaning of the treaty.

Article 4(1)(e) also means that the legal standard for the number of handicapped spaces required for parking at your church will be established by the UN—not your local government or your church.

Article 7(2) advances the identical standard for the control of children with disabilities as is contained in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This means that the government—acting under UN directives—gets to determine for all children with disabilities what the government thinks is best.

Additionally, under current American law, federal law requires public schools to offer special assistance to children with disabilities. However, no parent is required to accept such assistance. Under this section the government—and not the parent—would have the ultimate authority to determine if a child with special needs will be homeschooled, attend a private school, or be required to accept the program offered by the public school.

The United States, as a wealthy nation, would be obligated to fund disability programs in nations that could not afford their own programs under the dictates of Article 4(2). This is what “the framework of international cooperation” means. {considering the fiscal cliff our country is facing on January 1, 2013, this point alone merits a “NO” vote from the US Senate – OneMom}.

Article 25 on Education does not repeat the parental rights rules of earlier human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. This is an important omission. Coupling this omission with the direct declaration of “the best interest of the child” standard in Article 7(2), this convention is nothing less than the complete eradication of parental rights for the education of children with disabilities.

HSLDA urges homeschoolers and all freedom-loving Americans to contact their U.S. senators and urge them to oppose this dangerous UN treaty.

All references to CRPD are from the text of the CRPD located on the United Nations website.

Read this source for more detailed quotes about CRPD.