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WASHINGTON, September 20 (By RIA Novosti) – A US Senator and leading voice on the tangled and thorny topic of international child adoption said this week Russia is doing “a great disservice to itself” by raising parentless children in institutions, but expressed little hope that Moscow’s ban on adoptions of Russian children by American parents would be lifted anytime soon. "Every doctor knows how harmful institutional care is to children. It affects their emotional, mental, and physical development," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, herself the mother of two adopted children. "What I really want to say to the people of Russia...

When Shen feared her daughter Cheng Cheng was becoming 'spoilt and arrogant' she tried a controversial parenting techniqueA Chinese mother lied to her daughter for 13 years saying that she was adopted to give her 'more independence'. The mum, known only as Shen, married into a wealthy family and had a child called Cheng Cheng. But Shen struggled while bringing her daughter up and thought she was becoming spoilt and arrogant, Chinese media claim. So instead of disciplining her, Shen thought it would be a good idea to try a new parenting technique. She told Cheng Cheng when she was...

KIEL (WISCONSIN) : Todd and Melissa Puchalla struggled more than two years to raise Quita, the troubled teenager they'd adopted from Liberia. When they decided to give up the 16-year-old, they found new parents to take her in less than two days - by posting an ad on the internet. Nicole and Calvin Eason, an Illinois couple in their 30s, responded quickly. In emails, Nicole Eason assured Melissa Puchalla that she could handle the girl. "People that are around me think I am awesome with kids," Eason wrote. A few weeks later, on Oct. 4, 2008, the Puchallas drove from...

When a Liberian girl proves too much for her parents, they advertise her online and give her to a couple they’ve never met. Days later, she goes missing. KIEL, Wisconsin – Todd and Melissa Puchalla struggled for more than two years to raise Quita, the troubled teenager they'd adopted from Liberia. When they decided to give her up, they found new parents to take her in less than two days – by posting an ad on the Internet. Nicole and Calvin Eason, an Illinois couple in their 30s, saw the ad and a picture of the smiling 16-year-old. They were...

A Tennessee woman says that when her adoptive parents gave her away to new parents at age 14, she and 17 other adoptive kids in her “nightmarish” new home were sometimes forced to dig their own “graves” in the backyard and scrub the floor with toothbrushes. “’Get out and go dig your own grave,” Nora Gateley, now 26, says her new mother told her. “’I don’t care if you die. Nobody will find you. You were not even here in the first place.” Advertise | AdChoices Americans have adopted nearly a quarter million children from overseas since the late 1990s,...

. Mark Newton (right) and Peter Truong with their adopted son in Cairns, Australia. (photo source: Brisbanetimes.com.au) During the same month that U. S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was issuing his opinion that the Defense of Marriage Act “humiliated tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples,” Russia’s House of Parliament voted unanimously to ban the adoption of Russian children by same-sex couples from abroad. The House also voted to forbid single people who are citizens or permanent residents of countries that allow same sex marriage to become adoptive parents or legal guardians of Russian children....

FULL TITLE: Mystery of girl, 15, who was only reported missing by her brother - and not her parents - TWO YEARS after she was last seen Police in North Carolina say the adoptive parents of a 15-year-old girl missing since 2011 did not report her disappearance for two years - and now they are refusing to cooperate with the investigation. Erica Lynn Parsons was reported missing by her 19-year-old brother last week after she was last seen leaving the Salisbury home of her parents in November 2011. An attorney hired by Erica's adoptive parents, Casey and Sandy Parsons, claimed...

Sen. Eddie Lucio, the only Democrat in the Texas state senate to support the new law banning abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, says he’ll continue to push for a requirement for women to complete an adoption course before having an abortion. Lucio first proposed the measure in July. The Texas legislature is in a special third session due to failure to pass a transportation bill. If Lucio’s proposal isn’t added to the agenda, which it isn’t likely to be, he said he will refile his bill early in the 2015 session. In 2007, there were only 1,302 infant adoptions...

A married couple from Los Angeles have been jailed in the Middle East on a charge of murder with intent and are being accused of starving their 8-year-old daughter to death, according to a coalition of groups that are working on the case from the U.S. and trying to draw publicity to what they say are unjust arrests.

<p>AUSTIN, Texas -- When he filed an abortion-related bill with only one day remaining in the recently completed second special session, Texas state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. was hoping to make a statement, not change the law - at least not right away.</p>

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee (shown) has vetoed a bill that would have authorized the state to offer a “Choose Life” license plate to raise funds for a faith-based crisis pregnancy center in the state. The governor cited the First Amendment's supposed separation of church and state mandate that he insisted prohibited the state government from involving itself in such a campaign. The measure, which was approved by the Democrat-controlled state legislature earlier this month, would have allowed half of the $40 cost of the vehicle plates to go to Providence-based CareNet, a Christian crisis pregnancy center. Supporters said the...

Allahpundit mentioned this story in his post last night, but it’s worth a post of its own. In a world where the dominant culture divides children into the wanted and undesired for the convenience of others, it’s worth noting when a news story demonstrates the power of hope, love, and life: A Virginia church says it has received hundreds of calls from people around the world offering to adopt an unborn child with Down syndrome who otherwise would have been aborted.After the unborn child came to the attention of Rev. Thomas Vander Woude of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Gainesville,...

In July of 1993, a 15-year old mother was brought to Women’s Health Care Services to abort her little girl in the late stages of pregnancy. In fact, so far advanced was the pregnancy that the baby was already in position for delivery.Not having yet perfected his induction method of abortion, according to accounts, Tiller “injected the baby’s head, in two places, the left side of her forehead above the eyebrow and at the base of the skull, with Potassium Chloride, leaving permanent burn marks and needle track scars.”When the young mother returned the next day for the actual abortion...

Add another item to the list of red flags that may get you audited: Adopting a child. The Internal Revenue Service mishandled tax returns of adoptive families, flagging for further review 90 percent of those who claimed the adoption tax credit for the 2012 filing season. And a report by the federal agency’s Taxpayer Advocate Service also found that nearly 70 percent of adoptive families — more than 35,000 — had at least a partial audit of their tax return. By contrast, just one percent of all returns are audited. "The IRS's misguided procedures, and its failure to adequately adjust...

GLASGOW, June 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Another British Catholic adoption agency is being threatened with closure by the government for refusing to toe the government’s line of support for the homosexualist political agenda. St. Margaret’s Children and Family Care Society, associated with the Catholic archdiocese of Glasgow, has lost a ruling in its argument with the Scottish government’s charity regulator, which is demanding the charity drop its policy of adopting only to mothers and fathers who have been married for at least two years. The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has found St. Margaret’s in violation of the...

A Texas woman is not going to receive a Mother of the Year award. Instead she may receive prison time for placing her three-year-old son for adoption on Craigslist, the online marketplace. From a report by KHOU-TV in Houston: A 29-year-old mother who suffers from depression and anxiety says she placed a public ad offering to give her 3-year-old son up for adoption because she was off her meds, according to Houston police. Stephanie Christine Redus was charged with advertising for placement of a child; a misdemeanor. Police ran across a Craigslist ad seeking a good home for a 3-year-old....

Add another item to the list of red flags that may get you audited: Adopting a child. The Internal Revenue Service mishandled tax returns of adoptive families, flagging for further review 90% of those who claimed the adoption tax credit for the 2012 filing season. And a report by the federal agency’s Taxpayer Advocate Service also found that nearly 70% of adoptive families — more than 35,000 — had at least a partial audit of their tax return. By contrast, just one percent of all returns are audited.

Earlier this week, in a feeble attempt at humor on Facebook, I posted: “If you haven’t been audited by the IRS during the Obama administration, can you even call yourself a conservative?” Given the scale of the abuses, I should probably just shorten it and say, “Only RINOs don’t get audited.” My wife and I got audited in 2011, with the IRS examining every inch of our adoption the previous year. The process was painful, but we got through it, and our refund may have been adjusted by a few dollars (the amount of the adjustment was so small, I...

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 21, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has introduced a bill aimed at marginalizing Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), which serve women facing unexpected pregnancies with counseling and factual information about parenthood, adoption and abortion. CPCs also offer practical support for women who choose to parent, such as baby equipment, formula, diapers and clothing. H.R. 2030, which Maloney named the “Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services Act,” orders the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create regulations restricting CPCs’ advertising practices. The wording of the bill is minimal, leaving the details to be hammered out by the bureaucracy...

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - A South Carolina couple sued doctors and state social workers on Tuesday for subjecting a 16-month-old child born with both male and female genitalia to what they say was medically unnecessary and irreversible sex-assignment surgery while the toddler was in foster care. The state and federal lawsuits - believed by the couple's lawyers to be the first of their kind in the United States - argue that doctors should not have performed surgery to make the child's body appear to be female when they knew they could not predict how gender would develop. The child,...