Which Mother for Isabella? Civil Union Ends in an Abduction and Questions

[redstar826]

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Lisa A. Miller and her daughter, Isabella, started their fugitive lives here in the fall of 2009, disguised in the white scarves and long blue dresses of the Mennonites who spirited them out of the United States and adopting the aliases Sarah and Lydia

Comments

[yeats]

my heart breaks for this girl's other mother, who has to live every day imagining the sort of horrible things that her daughter is being taught about her.

[can_be_cruel]

This is so fucking awful, and this woman is either mentally ill or severely brainwashed. I hope the poor girl is returned to her mother.

[tnganon]

ffs does someone have to come out with this bullshit every single time there's an article about people doing fucked up shit? i'm already upset enough as a lesbian reading this hateful bs, and then you gotta go with "must be mentally ill"?

also, ime, a lot of religious groups and cults try and exploit lgbtq people because we already have the internalized homophobia, we've already been raised in a culture that says we're sinners and disgusting and immoral and child abusers and going to hell. so yeah, while i'm not excusing what's she's done, i've known people who were manipulated like this because they were terrified that they were inherently sinful, dirty people because they were attracted to other women. i am LIVID at the individuals who helped her and reaffirmed that hateful worldview, and i'm pissed that with all this you had the gall to bring up mental illness.

[aprettybinding]

As a lesbian myself i understand what you're trying to say, but i feel like there has been a lot that has come out about her that does at least HINT at her having some mental issues. Just the fact that she left behind pets to die tells me there is something more going on there, because hell, even if i was on the run i'd drop my pets off at a shelter on the way because i would never be able to live with myself. I also don't think we all automatically have some internalized conflict about who we are, though i agree those religious groups thinking they can fix gay people DO target and manipulate those who do, and she seems to fit a description of that.

[tnganon]

it's not really about whether she has "mental issues" or not though - lbr, most people have some mental health problems in their life, and mental illness is fairly common.

it's the jumping to "she must be mentally ill to do that" that i'm objecting to. even if she is, it may not have been a serious contributing factor. and even if it was a serious contributing factor, the constant conjecture about how criminals must be mental is both deflecting from larger societal problems that influence behaviour, and harmful to those of us living with mental illness.

[jamethiel_bane]

This is not ok. How does she get away with this kind of evil in the name of religion and not have people go "Lady, you are fucking wrong. Return this child to her mother."

Ugh. Breakups are awful and working out clashes in values as separate parents is hard enough. Essentially, by kidnapping the child she's ended any possibility of any kind of dialogue, or allowing Isabella to make up her own mind. GOD FORBID YOU PRESENT DIFFERING VIEWPOINTS AND ALLOW CHOICE.

[romp]

I was hoping the case was over. This poor girl.

I was lucky that I was able to adopt our 2nd child because we lived in a progressive city that allowed step-parent adoption. To live with the risk of losing your child and having no legal recourse...I can't imagine.

[pleasure_past]

So. How much do you think Isabella is going to resent Lisa for this when she's older? I keep trying to imagine it and I just can't. I mean, suppose that this ridiculous plan worked and Lisa and Isabella remained in hiding until Isabella turned eighteen. What would it do to this young woman to come of age without a single legal record of her own existence and with strange memories of having another mom in another country? How many opportunities is Isabella being robbed of and how much emotional and psychological distress is she being set up for?

I think that, if nothing else than for the sake of her own relationship with her daughter, Lisa Miller needs to turn herself in immediately. It doesn't matter how much Isabella loves her mother or how staunchly Christian she is, if she grows up and finds out about all of this, she is going to feel incredibly betrayed and it is going to do irreversible damage to both her faith and her relationship with Lisa. I can't imagine many better ways to turn a child off of your faith forever than to

[valkeakuulas]

It's unfortunately also possible that she will grow up with the worldview of the mother who kidnapped her. She has years to manipulate the kid into believing that she has done the right thing and is the victim here. The kid may also never rebel against the religious views she has been brought up with.

[pleasure_past]

I know. I guess maybe I am being a little naive in thinking that it must happen, but I still feel like the negative impacts on Isabella's quality of life are going to be so obvious that it's going to be hard for her not to feel a little betrayed by it all.