But the protection of the state is not what rights are about. Our democratic rights are above all the right to independence from the state. We take it as given that we are the people who should decide things like what newspapers we can read, where we can live and who we can talk to. Most women would assume that it is they, and not some government official, who is best placed to make decisions about contraception or childcare. We demand the right to make our own decisions about our lives, free from interference from the powers that be.
Protection is for incompetents.
When Hillary Clinton demands that children be treated as competents and granted the same rights as the rest of us, she reduces us all to the level of competence of a child. A child is competent before the law to the extent that an array of lawyers, social workers, and judges exercise his rights on his behalf. If these are the sort of rights that the rest of us should expect, then we had all better get used to being treated like children. The diminution of the rights of adults implicit in the elevation of children's rights is not just a question of legal jargon. In practice the whole realm of children's rights is a nightmare for parents.