More ICWA and Adoption Ethics

A comment from over there:

"...as a woman who is waiting to adopt and has been trying to build a family for over 5 years, I ask you this:  If one of your children was placed into your arms and said to be yours and then 30 days later someone came back and said, "wait never mind, this isn't "quite" legal." Would you have just handed them back and said, "We're so sorry, we didn't know we were involved with an adoption that was violating this law."??????

I wouldn't.  I wouldn't care if it was legal, I would want to be with that child that I love."

I answered her heck yeah.  What do ya'll say?

My colleague and I are planning a follow-up installment on this topic over the weekend.  Hope ya'll will check in, as you are more adoption-literate than the general public...

Comments

[Jo]

As parents who were fostering to adopt Native children, when we met up with ICWA and the kids, we gave the children back, if not gladly, then with the knowledge that the child is never just "ours" but part of a community. Part of the issue stems from the culture clash of the Eurocentric way of owning their children, feeling entitled and not belonging to a larger community. When you live for your tribe and not yourself, suddenly your actions have much more meaning.

[Stephanie in PR]

I am a mostly-lurker and I hesitate to comment on adoption since I most of what I know about it I've read here (meaning I don't have a lot of independent knowledge).

But...I have two children. We have thought about having 1-2 more and I've often felt sort of led to adopt. I'm not sure why but adoption in various forms keeps popping up in my life. I would be horrified to have a child in my home if I knew that his/her first mother wanted him/her back. My children's daycare is on an Army base and last year there was a bank robbery on the base and all the gates were closed. The children were safe inside the locked daycare but for 3 hours, I could not get to them. The anxiety and stress that I felt was huge and yet almost certainly tiny compared to what a first mother would feel if she wanted her baby back.

So, knowing that I'm interested in adoption and sensitive to the desires of the first mother, I keep bumping up against the idea that *if* the baby were to be taken away from me/my family, it would be horrible. I think of it mathematically - (very unlikely event) times (horrible event)=something I worry about (in the very hypothetical adoption future). I know I would end up reading a lot before we ever adopted so I'm sure I would come to terms with it, but the concern is still there.

[Jody]

Wait, a woman thinks that, knowing her child was placed with her in an invalid adoption, she would want to keep the child?

I do not understand that at all. How can you claim to love a child and then feel at ease knowing you've become that child's parent illicitly, illegally?

If I had begun an adoption, and someone came to me at six months or a year and said, this adoption isn't valid, there was a screw-up and we're so sorry -- well, my heart would break. And I would feel sick to my stomach, that I had inadvertently broken the law. And there is no way I could go forward with actions that would prevent this child I loved from being properly cared for according to the law.

I can't think of a news story about an adoption disruption that doesn't start with a hopeful adoptive couple fighting a preliminary decision that returns a child to his or her biological family or tribal group. None. And it always begs the questions for me: who did those parents love more, and why did they think the situation would improve if it were allowed to fester?

[Jody]

Oh, and in this case, the realization that the placement was dubious under adoption law happened (as it seems almost always to do) very soon after the placement -- within weeks.

Couples who fight have my sympathy for their emotional pain, but not for their decision to place their own desire for the child above the child's best interests. And I can't see how it would ever be in the child's best interests to learn someday that her parents were willing to pursue an unlawful adoption.

[Pronoia]

Until finalization, adoptions aren't legal! I wish people would understand this.

If the adoption agency is leading people to believe that placement is the legal equivalent of finalization, well, let's talk about the ethics of the agency, shall we?

And if it's just people who want it so much that they IGNORE the fact that there is a period of legal limbo (and even more so before revocation periods run out), then they need to get a grip.

Would I be heartbroken if that happened to us? Absolutely. Does that mean we ignore the reality that there is a grey area, time-wise, in adoption? Nope.

Long story short: agreeing with Shannon. (No surprise there!)

[Mark Diebel]

Read The Bean Trees by Barbara Kinsolver for an account of something like this...and what it looks like from the tribal perspective.

As an adopted person...would I rather have lived with the people to whom I was born? Yes...absolutely. To me...it would be, "get me out of here...get me back home...even the strange home I might have come from to you."

In fact, at the time frame we are talking about of six months...I was already ensconced in a foster home...that I was torn from later...and I don't remember them...but I want to know who they were.

I would say this for those parents who are trying to adopt: don't let them forget your names...that person someday may want to meet you and thank you. Keep that child in your heart all his life.

The worst thing about adoption is that our history gets stolen and forgotten. We don't get to keep our history because others think they know what we adoptees want. Most times it isn't much thinking involved. I want my whole story...everything...those who fought for me...those who won and lost.

[Lula]

I'm all over that post, as well as the original one that Shannon spun hers off. I'm sure my opinion is crystal clear.

And I'm disgusted too, BTW.

[Lori]

With our son we had to wait 30 days for some final legal issues. It would have broken my heart, but yes I would have given him back.

With our DD we has some other issues and did come very very close to having to foster her instead of adopting her. Luckily it all worked out, but I do know the fear of losing a child.

I think some people are missing the point. The adoption in question did not suddenly fall apart after 30 days, or 6 months. It was not a legal or ethical adoption from the minute that baby was born.

Adoption is a beautiful way to build a family, but it is a legal process. It is important to know the laws surrounding the baby you hope to adopt before taking that baby home.

[Mirah Riben]

A common test question of morality often goes like this:

If a store clerk gave you too much change (say change of $20 instead of $10) would you keep or let him know his error and return it?

Another asks: if you found a paper bag with a large sum of cash in a bus or wherever, would you report it to the police or keep it?

In both of these cases what we want is pitted against what is right, moral, ethical and legal....and also what would or would not hurt another human being.

Would you knowingly be the recipient of other stolen merchandise?

Would you advocate keeping a child who had been kidnapped?

If one can feel sympathy and compassion for a woman who held a child in her arms for 30 days - where is the same compassion for the one who carried the child for nine months?

Have you seen the video at:
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S712763.shtml?cat=206

Did you seethe amazing resemblance between mother and child? Are you aware of the lies about the drug tests? Are you aware the child has a mother, a father and full siblings?

How could you in good conscience support keeping a child form his family who loves him, wants him and is able to provide a safe home for him -- simply because someone else became attached to him?

What if a day care worker becomes attached to YOUR child?

No adoption is final until it is final. All adopters have to accept that uncertainty - it is like being pregnant and hoping the child is born alive and healthy - but having to except it when it is not so. Some babies die at birth - or within days or months. People cope with such losses. It is what is it. This is a loss of a stranger to a child she held for 30 days - over an entire family being permanently destroyed.

Do you think if the adopter kept this child he'd thank her someday for keeping him from his whole family who wanted him???

Isn't adoption supposed to provide care for children who NEED it - not snatch kids because of desire to have one??

You need to do a great deal of rethinking and re-prioritizing. Adoption is not about snatching children! We need to put FAMILIES FIRST! WWJD? What would any decent, moral person do?

[Susan]

What everyone else said: I wouldn't be happy about it, but how could you live with the knowledge that the adoption was not legal? What a breach of trust.

[Lisa]

So many of you completely miss the point. This is not a bag of cash. It is a child. And as the birth mother of five enrolled children, and the legal custodian of four more, anyone that thinks that returning a child to the reservation is a no-brainer knows nothing about the reservation. My husband, of 100% tribal heritage, DID NOT want any of his children raised on the reservation. For many people that love children, choosing to fight against them being placed into dangerous and dysfunctional homes (they frequently don't stay in the same home once moved out of a stable home) is the no-brainer.

The Law is Wrong.

The LAST thing kids of ANY heritage need is placement back into the very garbage that they came out of.

Children messed up by drugs and alcohol need safe, stable, therapeutic homes. It's the only chance they have. Anything less, and they will not be able to cope any better than their parents did. Fifteen years later, you will have another generation of babies needing special care.

Indian Child Welfare Act classes need to discuss the full ramifications of ICWA, not just the perspective of the tribal government. What has to be remembered is that when we allow tribal governments to determine their own membership criteria, we are treading on the individual rights of citizens all over the country. One father in Texas writes that he has spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting the tribe for custody of a little boy that is less than 2% tribal heritage. I have received letters from non-tribal parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles from all over the country. One grandfather signed his name "former grandfather of..." Their family, having exhausted all financial resources, has given up hope.

Yes, it can be that bad. And it is these people that need attorney's willing to face the wrath of the tribal governments and stand up for children and families.

Why are children of heritage considered unworthy of the same protection afforded children of other heritages?

http://icwaishurtingfamilies.blogspot.com/