Do Parents Have Rights To Their Children?

Do parents have rights when it comes to their children? I'm not talking about the right to abuse or hurt them in any way, I'm talking about the right to make decisions about/for them.

The Pelletiers took their daughter Justina, who, a few years back, had been diagnosed with mitochondrial disorder, to the hospital for the flu. Her disorder had been under control at that point. However, doctors at the hospital (different from the team who had been helping to treat her all along) diagnosed her differently, and said she had a psychological disorder instead; the parents were not allowed to take her home.

It was at that point they not only lost custody of her, but were issued a gag order about the case. Since then, Justina had been residing in the psych ward of the hospital. The 15 year-old girl had been there for one year, while the parents were only allowed to speak with her on the phone for 20 minutes once a week! This week the father sat down with Glenn Beck to tell the horrifying story, against the judge's ruling to keep silent. "She needs physical therapy. She needs to be back on the vitamin cocktail. She needs to be treated for the goddamn diagnosis she had from the beginning," Lou said. "I need to save my daughter. If we don’t do something, she is going to die." Since her time there, her health has deteriorated to the point where she is currently in a wheelchair. (One year ago in January, before this fiasco, Justina was ice skating).

As an added horror, this all took place in the world-renowned Boston Children's Hospital, which, as it turns out, has had several complaints lodged against them for similar reasons; this has led to an investigation into this facility.  At this point, Justina is out of the Boston hospital - she has been transferred to a psychiatric facility outside of the city. The family has been trying desperately to get her released and back into their care.

So, let me get this straight. Parents take daughter to hospital for flu. Hospital won't release her to parents. Parents ordered to shut-up by judge. One year later parents are still fighting for custody. What country is this again? You can hear the interview with all the details at this link:  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/17/ready-jon-father-so-heartbroken-about-daughter-held-at-hospital-against-his-will-he-just-defied-a-judges-order-to-talk-to-us-i-want-to-have-all-my-guns-blazing/
To help this family who have been financially devastated, go to:  http://freejustina.com/
UPDATE: Lou Pelletier, since speaking out on TheBlazeTV, has been slapped with contempt of court charges for not following the gag order.

Parental rights have been under assault for many years, but the trend seems to be growing, as the  court system has been increasingly disregarding these rights when it comes to upbringing, education, or as in Justina's case, medical decisions.

And if our local or federal court system wasn't bad enough in these situations, new international laws are seeking to empower the government to override parental decisions through a treaty called UN Convention on the Rights of a Child. If the U.S. ratifies this treaty, "the government would have the power to intervene in any child's life to advance its definition of  'the best interests of the child'." The consequence of this will be that parents will have the burden of proof in demonstrating to the State that they are good parents, instead of the State proving otherwise.

The only solution to this threatening law, would be for Congress to write a constitutional amendment to protect parental rights.  http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?SEC={81C1F260-4A9F-4013-8164-68A360E295A5}