ABSTRACT
This chapter schematizes the moral rights of children relevant to their basic welfare and protection from harm. It addresses formation of children’s family relationships, then regulation of particular aspects of their upbringing. ‘Children’s rights’ connotes to many a plea for special assistance, a claim to sympathy and charity for a vulnerable population. They are positive rights, dependent on adults’ choosing to be generous, and thus inherently weaker than the negative liberties that respect for autonomous individuals entails. A new-born child is a separate human being with needs and interests distinct from those of birth parents. Popular and scholarly discussion of child maltreatment commonly ascribes to children a negative moral right against gratuitous violence, with a corresponding duty on the part of legal parents to refrain from such violence.
