Gov. Abbott, taking formula from migrant babies would be illegal ? and vicious

In the debate over how to address the widespread shortage of infant formula in the United States, some Republicans have advanced a novel — and ugly — idea: Take food from migrant babies in federal detention and give it to American children.Such a “solution” is not only legally forbidden, it’s morally reprehensible.The idea of pitting one group of babies against another would be nasty in any circumstance. That settlement was written into federal law in 2008, and the Customs and Border Protection document explaining how to implement it specifically includes a requirement to provide detained children with food “appropriate for at-risk detainees’ age and capabilities (such as formula and baby food).”There is also a moral answer that is even more important: Our duty to babies is distinct from our judgments of their parents and stems from a higher place than petty hatreds and domestic politics.The Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, adopted by the League of Nations in 1924, affirmed that “mankind owes to the Child the best that it has to give.” According to this vision, children must be fed and nursed, and “the first to receive relief in times of distress.” These obligations override “all considerations of race, nationality or creed.”Childhood, as the drafters of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child put it, is a state of being “entitled to special care and assistance,” and not just because children and infants are more vulnerable than adults.