freedoms apart from government control. Opposition Opponents counter that the amendment could have unintended consequences, from the medical to the legal. "No U.N. treaty will ever usurp the national sovereignty of this country," said Meg Gardinier, chair of a national coalition backing the treaty. "Ratification would boost our credibility globally." "The amendment was dangerous, because children would be left in abusive homes and teenagers would be prevented from obtaining information and services that would help them avoid pregnancy, STDs and abortion," Patricia Donovan of the Guttmacher Institute wrote in a summary of a similar state-level constitutional amendment that failed in Colorado. "Although attractive on paper," Donovan continued, "in practice it would turn public schools into ideological battlegrounds for parents with opposing values and make adoptions more difficult because adoptive placements could be challenged in court. And it was so vague that it would result in a flood of litigation initiated by angry parents, at taxpayers' expense, against anyone working with children, including teachers, librarians, social workers and counselors." Massachusetts Parental rights activists state that employees of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) take children away from their parents without cause. They add that these employees, who they assert have improperly received immunity from the Massachusetts Supreme Court, threaten mothers with the loss of their children to coerce them into divorcing their husbands and attending support groups. They state that these support groups serve the dual purpose of allowing the associates of the DSS employees to receive additional government funding for running the support groups, and allowing the DSS employees to gain information used to take children away from their parents. Parental rights advocates state that abuse of power has occurred and that vested interest has played a role. See also Forced adoption in the United Kingdom References Divorce Marriage Family law