Rick Santorum is right that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is a danger to parental rights, as he explains in a new op-ed at World Net Daily.

“The best interest of the child” standard may sound like it protects children, but what it does is put the government, acting under U.N. authority, in the position to determine for all children with disabilities what is best for them. That is counter to the current state of the law in this country which puts parents – not the government – in that position of determining what is in their child’s best interest. Under the laws of our country, parents lose that right only if the state, through the judicial process, determines that the parents are unfit to make that decision.

In the case of our 4-year-old daughter, Bella, who has Trisomy 18, a condition that the medical literature says is “incompatible with life,” would her “best interest” be that she be allowed to die? Some would undoubtedly say so.

So if the state, and not Karen and I, would have the final word on what is in the best interest of a child like Bella, what chance would a parent have to get appropriate care in the days of increasingly government-funded medical care?

He is correct that the language sounds tame to those not paying attention. Obamacare is expected to include rationing of healthcare, particularly if those on the Left who are now attacking Rick Santorum as a “conspiracy theorist” get their way. The New York Times is openly advocating for rationing. If the State, instead of the parent, determines what is in the “best interest of the child,” and if the Left gets their way on rationing, then it follows that the State would have authority to deny parents of disabled children the right to obtain medical care for their children in need.

It should not be for the State to decide what is in the “best interests of the child” simply because a child has a disability. It should always be up to the parents to decide what is in the best interest of the child UNLESS the parents are abusive. The treaty should not even include “best interests of the child” in the text because being the parent of a disabled child should not, in and of itself, rob you of your legal status as the person responsible for making those decisions.

Read Rick Santorum’s full op-ed.