Posted on 06/23/2009 4:52:16 PM PDT by Bokababe
Reunions of adopted children and their birth parents are usually heartwarming moments in which tears flow and broken bonds are made whole in mere seconds.
At least that's how it usually plays out on "Oprah."
But that wasn't the case last Dec. 13, when an Atlantic City woman came face to face with the daughter she placed for adoption 30 years ago after being raped.
This short reunion on the woman's doorstep left her feeling "violated, in shock, and short of breath," according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, in Camden, and she believes that a division of New Jersey's Department of Children and Families helped set up the traumatic event.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Evaluation does not equal diagnosis.
The receptionist in an office has the ability to evaluate.
I dress myself daily and have the job of parenting two orphaned children adopted from Russian institutions.
I know what adoption and loss of birth parents does to a child.
I think that birth mother needs therapy to deal with the rape and separate that experience from the child she bore. Her life sounds terrible, and what her attitude and actions will do to her daughter is also terrible.
Now, run along and tell your attendant to ask the doc about increasing your meds.
I don’t believe that to be true.
statistics show that 80-90% of birth mothers give up their children in hopes that someday they WILL be in contact again!
Not every pregnant woman will abort a child because maybe someday they might have to be in contact with him/her again.
feeling do not trump legal rights. never have, never will.
I do know that there are many organizations out there trying to change the ignorant laws that have been on the records for decades in regards to adoption.
I would not be opposed to a rape case adoption being permanently sealed. unfortunately our laws don’t make distinctions and there are many wonderful women who gave up for adoption babies that they WANT to have future contact with, only it wasn’t an option.
In some states these laws have already begun to change. perhaps that is what occured in this case.
I find it interesting that conservatives will scream from the roof tops about how few rights women should have when it comes to abortion(all rights to the fetus) yet in this case the child has no rights and the mothers wants and desires are ALWAYS of the utmost importance?
seems hypocritical.
Hypocritical doesn’t even begin to describe it. Right and wrong trumps the law.
A child has a moral right to know its parents just as a parent has a right to know his child. Here in Norway it used to be (I assume it still is) the law that children born in marriage automatically are counted as children of the husband (even if bloodtype show they can’t be). And the husband didn’t have the right to DNA test the child without permission from the wife (that bit has changed). Thus a man could be forced to support someone else’s bastard and have no legal recourse. Similarly a man could have an affair with a woman, perhaps not even knowing she was married, and have no chance of knowing his child. I trust we can all agree that this sort of thing is wrong. Mindlessly spouting ‘the Law says so’ is what liberals do. Right and wrong isn’t simply something we define to exist. Some of us actually believe man is endowed with certain inalienable rights.
Sometimes the law is just plain wrong. Family matters, especially for those of us who are Christians. It is quite shocking to see many people here angrily attack people for defending a child’s right to know its family, while still claiming to be conservatives or even Christian. The removal of anonymity may increase abortions. But it will also do away with anonymous sperm and egg donations and basically put an end to the private Lebensborn programmes that gay ‘couples’ frequently rely on to reproduce. There will be at least as many positive as negative effects from such a change. Ban abortion and the effect will be entirely positive. It is quite sad that so-called conservatives don’t even realize when their views are undermining the traditional family more effectively than the gay marriage front. And make no mistake - that is exactly what happens when blood-bonds are made to be meaningless.
It’s been a few days since I have been on this thread but I just had to comment about this. How can you even begin to equate abortion with adoption? A woman shouldnt have a right to an abortion because the RIGHT that the baby has to life SHOULD trump the WISHES of the mother. Similarly, the RIGHT of the mother to privacy trumps the adopted child’s WISHES to know her mother. There is no hypocrisy. It is actually a very coherent and consistent worldview. The reason you can’t see that is because you are controlled by your feelings. It has been explained. You just refuse to see it.
AMEN! you are one of the few who actually GET it. There are no real laws that give rights to children to know where they come from and what their genetics are because it is already perceived to be a given since adoption isn’t the norm.
Why give rights to something that most everyone already has?
But when adoption became commonplace the law didn’t keep up.
so now, those of us who understand that are in the wrong? The law used to say slavery was legal...didn’t make it right.
How did this situation tear down a traditional family? A woman gave a child a chance at a traditional family. The child’s bio father was a rapist and the bio mother was single (I presume). There is nothing in the scripture that say blood relationship trumps everything else. In fact there is a very beautiful analogy of the Gentiles being adopted into the family of Christ. I believe that man has certain inalienable rights. Knowing your birth parents isnt one of them.
I refuse to agree with you because i believe your wrong. this isn’t about feelings. Some of us actually believe man is endowed with certain inalienable rights.
Just because the law hasn’t addressed this(most likely because for MOST people this wasn’t an issue...it was something they had since birth, a birthright if you will)Doesn’t mean that there are two people in this equation and ALL of the rights go to one party and most people are unwilling to even TRY to see the other sides point of view.
I never claimed that the adult child had a right to meet her mother. But I believe she should have the right to know who she is, why she was put up for adoption and what her medical background might be.
What makes it wrong for this woman to want privacy? Until you can answer that question, you are still just going on your feelings. Yes there are some thing that are legal that are not moral. Abortion is one of them. Privacy laws for biological mothers are not immoral.
They can’t both have what they want. Someone’s rights have to trump the other. Would you like a baby to be half aborted so that not all the rights go to one person? Your view makes no sense. Knowing who your birth parent is, isn’t an inalienable right. I know you would like it to be but it is not. The mother does have a right to privacy (the law gives it to her). If the state give her name address and phone number to the child. They violated her rights. You can’t give the child a right (to know her mother) that violates the mother’s rights (privacy). Equally you cant (or shouldnt be able to) give a pregnant woman a right (abortion) that violates the child’s right (life). The reason that so few people get your viewpoint on this forum is because it is a conservative forum and your view is not a conservative one.
...and the difference is...?
Well said...and obviously well reasoned, before being said.
We agree there...it's understandable that the daughter would want to do so, even predictable. She did nothing wrong
And the state did *nothing* wrong either.
Well, yes they did. As predictable as it is that children would want to contact their birth parents, it's essential that confidentiality be not only promised, but that the promise is kept. It's the State, not the daughter, who has responsibilities here. The social worker ignored those responsibilities in a way that one poster described so well as "taking the law into her own hands."
We expect such children to act predictably...and for the State to follow the rules. They didn't. The birth mother has been wronged. Were I in her shoes, I'd want to fix that. Since that particular bell can't be unrung, I'd want to see it didn't happen again. This lawsuit is the perfect way to insure that.
Do I know her heart is pure? No, I have no way of knowing, but I'm not judging her on the basis of what appears to be reasonable actions on her part.
That, obviously, is the difference between you and me. As I said to another poster, I can understand why posters want to post here, as opposed to HP.
But your viewpoint is anything but conservative. You would fit in much better at a lefty site.
The receptionist in the office has the opportunity to evaluate, not the ability. There is a difference.
Even so, at least the receptionist in the office would have had actual contact with this person, which you have not.
One of the foundations of wisdom is having a healthy respect for that which you do not know. This seems to be lacking for you.
Which is fine, but irrelevant. You know little, is anything, about the circumstances of this woman's life, yet you presume to make decisions for her.
You should be credited with creating so much opinion with what is, to be blunt, total ignorance on your part...but you should consider the difference between your feeling and the law. If you can't, again, you should be posting somewhere else.
Blessings! — I have also enjoyed your posts.
seems hypocritical...
Only under the most shallow analysis, the type displayed on pro-abortion bumper stickers such as "If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?"
That seems hypocritical to leftys, and the intellectual flaw is the same.
The most fundamental right is the right to not be deprived of one's life at the hand of another. That is a universal right.
Other rights are balanced with responsibilities, and the ability to be responsible. We don't allow children to drive, or vote, or enlist before a certain age, and only then with parental consent. We don't allow children to enter into contracts.
So, yeah, it's an oppressive world. Lots of decisions are made for children without their approval, input, or even knowledge.
So, no, it's not always "about the children."
It's not about the child's wants or needs versus the mother's wants or needs, but what was agreed to at the time, the law then and the law now...especially when the government is here to "help you."
I can understand the child's desire to connect with her birth parent. I don't fault her in any way. I fault some social worker paying God.
To the simple minded, contradictions and therefore hypocrisy are everywhere. As Albert Einstein said (paraphrased) Explanations should be made as simple as possible, but not more so.
So, to make it as simple as possible: it's not about what the birth mother wants, or the child wants, or what the social worker wants. It's about what's been decided by society, acting through institutions including government. Their roles, rights and responsibilities have been prescribed.
It is what it is.
Very briefly:
I don't care what was signed 30 years ago.The girl's rights (*moral* rights) far,*FAR* outweigh any rights (moral *or* legal) that the mother might have.
There is one,and *only* one,"bad guy" here.It ain't the daughter.And it ain't the state official that made the meeting possible.
If the mother's angry (and that would be understandable) it should be directed AT THE RAPIST.Period!
As an aside,I'd love to know what the lawyer who's gonna represent her has told her.My gut tells me that he/she just might be a slimey,filthy,greedy individual like *so* many lawyers in this country.
And,lastly,those who know me well have called me many things in my life (some of them even complimentary) but I assure you that "lefty" ain't one of them.
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