From what i've read, the biological mother sought prospective parents for the child. There should have been a lawyer involved at some point, and the State would have been involved. It's their responsibility to ensure that all parties are aware of the ICWA and legal protocols. I don't think, from what i've read, that the ~adoptive~ parents deliberately bypassed protocol.
"The mother then arranged for the adoption. She did not notify the father of the pending adoption until 12 days before the father, a soldier in the US Army, was set to deploy to Iraq for 11 months. (The paperwork for the adoption had been filed four months earlier in South Carolina.)
When the father learned of the adoption, he immediately objected and began efforts to block it. The father’s lawyers maintain that if the adoption had been disclosed properly to the father and to the state of Oklahoma, it would have never been approved over the objection of the father and the Cherokee Nation." (from http://news.yahoo.com/baby-veronica-supreme-court-rules-adoptive-parents-wrenching-010714941.html)
I don't believe for a second that these people didn't know; in fact, I have read that they DID very well know, but I can't find the source for that at the moment. Either way, ignorance is not an excuse to break the law and never has been. Additionally, the parents have started a "Save Veronica" campaign, meaning that they think they have to SAVE THIS CHILD from being raised by her Cherokee relatives or another American Indian adoptive family - the people who SHOULD have been first in line to adopt, had the law actually been followed. They are also taking lots of help from the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare, which is a group that is SKEEVY AS FUCK and basically is a rehash of the same old white Christian child-stealing bullshit that's been going on in this country for well over a century. These are people who believe that the best place for a child is ANYWHERE BUT A RESERVATION and that children should be removed at all costs.
These prospective adoptive parents are REALLY OBVIOUSLY not the kind of people who should be raising an American Indian child, whether or not you really think they ~didn't know~ they were breaking the law.
"The mother then arranged for the adoption. She did not notify the father of the pending adoption until 12 days before the father, a soldier in the US Army, was set to deploy to Iraq for 11 months. (The paperwork for the adoption had been filed four months earlier in South Carolina.)
When the father learned of the adoption, he immediately objected and began efforts to block it. The father’s lawyers maintain that if the adoption had been disclosed properly to the father and to the state of Oklahoma, it would have never been approved over the objection of the father and the Cherokee Nation." (from http://news.yahoo.com/baby-veronica-supreme-court-rules-adoptive-parents-wrenching-010714941.html)
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These prospective adoptive parents are REALLY OBVIOUSLY not the kind of people who should be raising an American Indian child, whether or not you really think they ~didn't know~ they were breaking the law.
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