J.B. Shurk writes for the Federalist about the negative impact of Democratic policies on children.

Americans who would sacrifice anything to protect their children may be surprised to learn that their inclination is a rather modern phenomenon. For most of human history, the most dangerous period of any person’s life was childhood. Only if a newborn survived the first decade of disease, warfare, hunger, and all the other mundane threats to ordinary human existence would the survivor gain any type of social recognition.

O.M. Bakke explores this reality in his book, “When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity.” Before the spread of Christianity transformed prevailing cultural beliefs, children had no legal standing in the pagan societies of the Roman Empire and elsewhere. …

… Today, we sadly are witnessing the reverse of this civilizational achievement. Once again, children have become objects unworthy of life, protection, or tutelage.

Their mere right to exist is balanced against a mother’s right to convenience. Their childhoods have become sexualized. Their education has been abandoned and replaced with regimens of indoctrination that make them easy targets for governments, corporations, and predators to exploit. …

… Not long ago, abortion was commonly understood as the murder of a baby and an act deserving of shame. Now abortion is perversely defended as both a “human right” and a part of “family planning,” even though it extinguishes entirely the rights of at least one human and diminishes a family forever. …

… It is simply astonishing that the Democratic Party finds it controversial when parents demand that teachers not discuss sexual acts with their five-year-old children. On what moral plane does one have to exist to believe that a child learning to ride a bike and tie shoes should also be introduced to graphic lessons in sexual intercourse, homosexuality, and transgenderism?