Indian Affairs, Adoption, and Race: The Baby Veronica Case Comes to Washington

[maenads_dance]

The United States Supreme Court next Tuesday hears argument in a head-spinning case that blends the rank bigotry of the nation's past with the glib sophistry of the country's present. The case is about a little girl and a Nation, a family and a People. The question at the center of it has been asked (and answered) over and over again on this

Comments

[moonshaz]

Well, the article includes this: "The father, who now lives with the little girl in Oklahoma..." which I take to mean that she is with him now. Whether she gets to stay with him is what's in question, I suppose.

Leaving the racial issues aside for a moment, I HATE to see adoption messes like this that are still being contested for ANY reason this long after the child's birth. (And of course, there have been some that dragged on even longer than this one.] It's just so unfair to the CHILD in question.

In this case, from what I've read so far, including this article, it's still not clear to me how or if his consent to the adoption was obtained, but if it was NOT done properly, then no one else has the right to adopt her, afaic. PERIOD. No child with living biological parents should be placed in an adoptive home without proper legal documentation that the biological parents have given up their parental rights freely and willingly (or had them removed out of a demonstrated necessity). This one doesn't seem to meet that particular smell test, from what I can see.