Stop Making Excuses, Sign It

It is difficult for most Americans to focus on the plight of children dying of disease and malnutrition. In spite of a long list of facts that paint the ugly picture of infant mortality right here in the United States, the American mind’s-eye picture of a sick and hungry child is invariably, and erroneously, foreign. That is why it’s important for President Bush to acknowledge that the United States, as much as some Third World countries, has a deep problem in caring for its young. That’s why the President should attach his name to, and forward to the Senate, the United Nations document that sets forth a plan for aggressively helping children.

Reams of reports from children’s advocates and health organizations, and from the White House’s own task forces, lay out in detail how a few dollars spent now on easily preventable diseases can save many thousands later on. National leaders got an earful of such statistics last year at the world children’s summit.

Yet the United States failed to sign the U. N. Convention on the Rights of the Child that would put the U.S. name behind better survival, protection and development of all children. The Administration said it objects in part to provisions that would ban execution of those under age 18. Some state laws in this country allow it. But the convention allows nations to get around obvious points of contention--that’s why no position was taken on abortion. So the objections to the convention sound more like excuses. Endorsing it would remove doubts about the U.S. commitment to its children, its future.