Do Children Have Any

Rights?
Shanti Marlina Dwi Handayani A 320200015
Rezza Almiana Putri A320200017
 Introduction

Liberal societies are founded on the principle that human beings have
certain rights that ought to be protected by the government and
respected by fellow citizens. The place of children in this understanding
of human beings has been a challenge to sort out within liberal theory.
Some may want to say that 13- and 14-year-olds have rights to privacy
and to their bodies just like any other person. Others might argue that as
children, they are dependent upon others and so are not full rights
bearers.
 The choice theory of rights
A good deal of confusion about the claim that children have rights depends on the tacit assumption that the choice
theory is the correct theory. Rights are essentially guarantees of freedoms to direct one's life, but not those of
others. They give one control over other people in the sense that one can prevent others from encroaching on
one's own freedom. Har:t claims that as rights bearers we can waive our rights, or put another way, choose
not to invoke our rights when we feel a more important value ought to govern a situation.

Here is H. L. A. Hart, the most prominent defender of this theory of rights in the last century, elabo rating the equal
right to freedom, which, he thinks, underlies all other rights:
Any human being capable of choice (1) has the right to forbearance on the part of all others from the use of
coercion restraint against him save to hinder coercion or restraint and (2) is at liberty to do any action which is
not coercing or restraining or designed to injure other persons (Hart, 1955, p. 175)

This is because they are not competent choosers, are vulnerable, and dependent. On this theory the
inappropriateness of considering children rights-bearers is obvious. If the choice theory orrect, children do not
have rights, then there is no basis for saying that they have the right to private information concerning, and
supply of, contraceptives. Whether adolescents, older teens, have rights depends on whether they have
achieved the requisite level of capacity for self-governance - something which in the West teenagers seem to
be optimistic about having done, but which others may be more sceptical about.
 The interest theory
Joseph Raz describes the theory very succinctly:
Definition: 'X has a right if and only if X can have rights and other things being equal, an aspect of X's well-being
(his interest) is a sufficient reason for holding some other person(s) to be under a duty. The Principle of Capacity
to Have Rights: An individual is capable of having rights if and only ifeither his wellbeing is of ultimate value or he
is an artificial person." (Faz, 1984, p. 195)

MacCormick rejects the will theory on the grounds that neither children, nor the people who take care of them may
waive these rights:it is not the case that the child or someone deemed to be acting on the child's behalf has an
option of enforcing the duty of care and nurture, which option may or may not be exercised accord ing to arbitrary
choice.

Things get complicated because not only does the interest theory have the resources to recognize children as
rights bearers; it also has the resources to recognize parents' as having rights over their children. If adults have an
interest in being able to have a certain kind of relationship with children. and reliably enabling people to have such
a relationship requires assigning them rights over their children, then the interest theory will say that parents have
precisely those rights over children

That all children have a right to quality health care is clear under the interest theory because health care furthers
every child's current and future well-being. This, an interest theorist would argue, is a moral right, that translates
into a legal right that obligates adults and the state to ensure that all children are cared for.
 Why might children not have rights?

The first two requirements are perfect obligations because they require universal compliance and therefore
correspond to rights. The third case is an imperfect obligation because, although agents have no latitude over
whether to perform or omit the pertinent act, we do have some discretion over who should be the beneficiary of
that performance or omission. For example, the obligation to be kind to strangers is not the obligation to be kind
to all strangers, or to be kind to specified strangers, only to be d to some. No particular stranger has a claim on
our kindness. If Clement is in a hurry to get back to his wife's bedside as she gives birth, het falls down on no
obligation by refusing a lift to a stranger who needs to get to the other side of town.

How does this relate to children's rights? Much of what children need in order to acquire what is due to them
falls into the category of imperfect obligation (O'Neill also notes that there are, of course, perfect obligations to
children like refraining from abusing all children). That is, little right that they have comes from any particular
person, or from all people. As O'Neill puts it:We may have a fundamental obligation to be kind and considerate
in dealing with children-tocare for them and to put ourselves out in ways that differ from those in which we
must putourselves out for adults. This obligation may bind all agents, but is not one that we owe either to
allchildren or merely to antecedently specified children.

What children need are special relationships with adults who take on the necessary roles to secure a child's
well-being like parents, teachers, and social workers.
 Children's interests
One natural thought is that children have an interest in becoming effective adults. And surely, most
do. There has been a tendency among moral and political philosophers thinking about childhood to,
indeed, regard children as proto-adults and to see their interests primarily in those, future-oriented,
terms.

Children have other interests, which although highly functional for their future develop ment, are also
valuable for them in the present. They have an interest in food, shelter, loving care and attention,
friendship and other kinds of meaningful connection with other children, acquaintance with adults
who are not their parents, some sort of integration into their com munity, etc. Of course adults also
have these interests, which lie at the basis of some of their rights, on the interest view.

Young children are in a different condition, and do not have an interest in controlling as much of the
conditions of their lives as adults do. If you like, they need love, not control over determining whom to
be in a loving relationship with.
 Conclusion: so, do
children have rights?

First are rights that protect the interest in the goods distinctive to childhood. The rights to
play, to use their imagination, and to an environment in which friendships with peers can
develop-all serve these interests. Children have a right that their education be carried out in a
manner consistent with them not being made deeply miserable.

Second are rights that protect the welfare interests children have in common with adults like
access to a home, to shelter, to a family, to food, and to restful sleep.

there are rights that protect one's future capacity for agency. It is common to include the
right to education in this category, and to specify the content of the education one has a
right to by reference to, among other things, future agency interests.