Ask anyone claiming to do good in their work to account this variable: How children being born into the world and raised impacts the claims they make.

 

You will find that:

• If they claimed to help children, they will have omitted the fact that more children were born into conditions that violated what they considered to be the standard of care than their after-the fact policies would have saved. You will also find they benefited, at deadly cost to others, from omitting that fact.
• If they claimed to help animals or the environment, they will have omitted the fact that the family policies they ignored meant greater harm to animals and the environment than their after-the fact policies would have saved. You will also find they benefited, at deadly cost to others, from omitting that fact.
• If they claimed to further human rights and democracy, or the racial and other forms of equity on which those ideals derive, they will have omitted the fact that the horrific child welfare standards they accepted would have reversed the progress claimed, using simple measures like representative ratios, than their after-the fact-policies would have saved. You will also find they benefited, at deadly cost to oethers, from omitting that fact.

 

 

Would those being protected have wanted to the full story to be told? 

Many at Fair Start, in former work, made the same omissions, omissions that resulted in the death of many, omissions that hid the reparations liabilities of a relatively small group of wealthy and mostly white families. Many came from the animal rights movement, where the contrast between what was claimed, and the reality, is the greatest in terms of numbers of animals impacted and way concepts like animal law have been perverted by many wealthy funders who backed things like vegan food investments because they benefiited from them, whike choosing family systems that on balanve harmed animals and children. 

They and many others – through their omissions – hid an error made by world leaders between 1948 and 1968, an error that some exploited. to favor wealthy white elites, and create the disparity we see today. You can see the error if you examine a very reliable summary of legal baselines, something that determines what our fundamental obligations are and the costs and benefits associated with them.

Note that there is no specification of a concrete ecological baseline that would have prevented the climate crisis, or an equity standard that would have avoided those least responsible for the crisis absorbing most of its deadly costs. That is a very material omission, one that hides the primary obligations  – based on equity – we owe would-be parents.

Freedom, or self-determination, by definition first flows from the restoration of nature (a baseline defined by the relative absence of human influence) achieved via delayed parenting, which is entitled through birth and developmental equity funding pegged inverse to wealth. This is owed as the first and overriding human right, and it allows each to be relatively free  – from the ecological and social influence of others – and thus capable of constituting a system of legitimate governance. Ignoring this fact created the state of affairs we see today, and the inevitable death of millions. One of the leading political philosophers in the nation has backed this truth.

 

 

The omissions make the baselines in the summary static, inverted relative to the environment humans need, and dangerously abstract. Legal theorists generally debate whether something is law or the supreme authority/obligation, based on whether it derives from 1) social sources and processes, 2) particular values, and/or 3) values specific to law (or what many call the rule of law). All of these are evidently problematic without accounting for how children enter the world and are raised. This assessment should be unique to issues of birth equity because it alone requires dealing with the creation of legal relations – generally occurring at birth.

And this is clear: That omission benefitted mostly wealthy white families at deadly cost to countless children of color. We constitute ourselves as free persons by changing the way we speak, and through that how we see the world. 

Here is the fix, and start by demanding those claiming to do good in the world not make deadly omissions.