The Civil Unions Bill has kicked up much mention of children and their best interest. Rather than focusing the debate on what a civil union represents at law for those heterosexual and same-sex couples who choose to have their relationship regulated as a civil union, the hottest issue has turned out to be that of adoption of children.
In a way, the debate ought to have focused on what will distinguish a civil union from a marriage. Nowadays, many couples actually seek legal advice before contracting marriage, asking what the effects of marriage will be.
A civil union is available to opposite-sex couples as much as same- sex couples, but when lawyers will be asked by their clients to lay out the differences between marriage and civil union, we will be finding it rather difficult to give them any legal distinction.
In all this debate, it is the talk on children and maybe more the manner in which their best interest is being discussed that truly irks me.
It is sad to realise that we think we are speaking of what is in the best interest of a child only to find out that we are after all considering this from a ‘need’ expressed by adults to raise a child.
While our need to be parents is a noble one, what is more noble is to see a child being given the opportunity and best environment that allows them to develop into their own selves.
Should the need of adults to be parents prevail, then we have not changed and have remained a society that sees children as extensions of their parents, human beings who are not separate from those from whom they have come forth or from those who are raising them.
Shrouding the debate in the discourse of civil unions exposes it to be one which does not truly focus on children but merely highlights the need of people to be parents and almost the subjection of minors to be parented to fulfil someone’s need.
It is true that a child depends entirely upon adults but in my mind dependency does not turn them into extensions of ourselves. Children are dependent only in so far as they need an environment and assistance within which each one of them will develop their own personality.
Words such as love and care have been abundantly used in the debate but I consider these to have been used rather loosely, with one side taking pride in who loves or cares best and the other taking offence. We are only fooling ourselves, competing on who can do what best, while doing an injustice to children.
Until we continue to view children’s issues as only being related to them rather than actually belonging to them, then no number of laws, regulations, directives or conventions will succeed in truly implementing the best interest of the child.
I sometimes wonder why laws on matters related to children often fail in real life; most probably, they do because these laws do not deal with an issue as being one that belongs to the child but only one that relates to the child or, at best, implemented in this frame of mind.
If it is time to consider our position on children, then the debate is not to take place as a side issue of civil unions
The EU can take pride in that it regulates cross-border rights of access, or that its Brussels II is a major step forward in the fight against abductions of children. The international community can also take pride in having formulated similar conventions.
But the crux is in applying them and until we start seeing children as individuals with their own needs, expectations and rights, we will continue to do them a disservice.
It is true that parents have a great finger in the pudding, but so does the State, especially towards those children who are entrusted or taken into public care. Legal responsibility over a child goes beyond the concept of having control over a child’s life. In fact, legal responsibility is to be exercised in a manner that takes into account the child’s abilities, inclinations and aspirations. Even when parents exercising parental authority are in place, the State retains its responsibility to protect children from harm.
If it is time to consider our position on children, and I believe it to be so, then the debate is not to take place as a side issue of civil unions.
Changing the mentality of society is no small feat, but surely it must start with a change in the mentality of the legislator, members of the executive and those who are entrusted with ensuring children their needs.
There is only one way forward. Give children their due limelight and open a mature debate on their needs, expectations and rights, consider where we are failing them and set up the necessary structures.
Therese Comodini Cachia is a PN candidate for the European Parliament elections.