Reform Adoption & Safe Families Act of 1997

Sign this petition to stop Federal bonuses and eliminate incentives to destroy families!

Khrysti Martarello-Lunnar writes:

    Above you will find the link for our newest petition. As some of you know, we've created it to eliminate federal funding for children adopted from foster care. I made the decision to void the previous petition upon discovery that some of the people who signed it had, in fact, actually abused, neglected and even molested their children but signed the petition. My intention is NOT to pave the way for guilty parents/family members to regain custody of their children, nor is it my intention to eliminate CPS as a whole. CPS is needed for the children who are legitimately abused, neglected and molested at the hands of the people they love. I believe that abolishing the bonuses paid to state and local government for children adopted from foster care will eliminate the incentive to destroy innocent families. ....

Pass it along so we can quickly reach our quota for signatures. The sooner we reach our goal, the sooner some of these children may come home.

    I'm writing to ask you all to sign this new petition as this is the petition we will submit to the U.S. President and U.S. Congress. We do need a LOT of signatures but I have faith that if we all share and sign the petition, if you havent already as only ONE signature is needed, we can achieve this much needed change for our children and future generations.

PLEASE BE SURE TO USE VALID INFO IN THE NAME AND CONTACT FIELD OR YOUR INFO WILL NOT BE COUNTED BY CONGRESS!** I WILL NOT SHARE, GIVE OUT OR SELL ANY OF YOUR INFO!!

Petition Link

Thank you all so much for your support in our efforts to protect our Nation's children from abuse at the hands of the very Government assigned to protect them!! Should you have questions or concerns, you may visit our website at www.reformasfa1997.info , join us on FB at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Citizens-for-Reformation-of-the-Adoption-Safe-Families-Act/355654914495219 , or simply reply to this email and I will personally get back to you within 24 hours. Thank you again and take care.

***Since the enactment of ASFA in 1997, the number of children placed in, as well as adopted from, foster care has risen at a disturbing rate. Children are being removed from falsely accused parents without tangible evidence of wrongdoing. Nearly 99% of all children in foster care are now deemed 'special needs', which further increases federal funding. The title 'Special Needs' was previously only assigned to children with documented physical, mental or psychological disabilities; it now encompasses children in therapy, those on psychotropic medications and suffering with attachment/abandonment issues as a direct result of being removed from loving parents and homes.

Adoption Possessiveness: Looking For Jaime or Jamie Auerbach Lenner

One again the strong possessive arms of those who adopt has struck out and slapped me in the face. swatted away attempts at telling an adoptee she is loved because of feelings of ownership shrouded in the politeness of "protection." This is a story of a family adoption of my best friend's child.


The Back Story

In the 1980s I lost my best dear friend Ellen. Ellen and I met upstate New York on a camping trip in the 70s and formed a close bond because of both being Brooklyn girls.  I was newly married and she dating.

When she met "the one" my husband and I were among the very first to meet Barry. Barry and Ellen were a "cute" couple - one of those couples who could pass for brother and sister both having curly dark blonde hair.  Barry also gave us reason for concern from the start because of his "partying" ways - code for drugging. But when your best friend is in love,  and says, "I know, BUT..." he's stopping, etc.. etc. all you can do is continue to be there for her and so we all accepted "Barry and Ellen" as an entity among our friends.

ABOVE: Barry (shirtless with beer) and Ellen, pregnant with Dayla

That's me in the red shorts and Afro!

Barry and Ellen wed and their first child, Dayla, was born three months after my daughter.

They called us from the hospital with the proud parent news. But a second call followed closely behind. Dayla was born with a heart condition and needed open heart surgery. We waited and prayed. We would do so several more times over the course of Dayla's too short life as she endured several operations and procedures. She was beautiful and petite (frail really) and so when she was well Ellen began to pursue a modeling career for the precious little angel.

LEFT: My daughter, 3 mos. RIGHT: Dayla, 6 mos. 

Barry was not coping so well. He claimed that Dayla's precarious health brought up old fears for him. Apparently he had a younger brother who was very ill and he was told that as the older brother he had to watch out and take care of him. His brother died and Barry blamed his drug use on that and said that Dayla's condition brought it all back up and so his attempts to quit using reversed and his drug use escalated from recreational to heavy use.

Dayla's first birthday. 

Ellen's mother is holding Dayla and my daughter. Stuart's sister on the left.

Ellen and Dayla

Dayla was about 2 or 2-1/2 and Ellen, pregnant again, began sharing with me tales of Barry's overdoses. Their second child Jamie (or Jaime) was born - healthy - but Barry's drug use remained serious. And the day came when Ellen phones to tell me her "good news."  Barry had at last agreed to go into rehab and the family was taking one last weekend away before he went.

I was alone. My husband was out of the country with the National Guard when I got the call from Ellen's mother. I was so stunned I actually said: "That can't be true" when she told me that Ellen and Dayla were killed in an automobile accident. Barry was driving, and Jamie who was in her car seat behind him were OK. They had been hit on the right side as they made a left turn into  a Wawa. I couldn't believe it! I had just spoken to her the day before. For the first time ever, I enlisted my mother-in-law to come and stay with my kids, so I could go to the funeral.

Their funeral was the worst funeral I will likely EVER attend if I live to be 100!  Ellen's mother had to be physically restrained form wanting to jump in the grave into which her only daughter and beloved granddaughter - who had endured so much to be alive - were being lowered into. her pain was palpable. In the days following their funeral, Ellen's father asked me about Barry and I protected Ellen's secrets, and protected her very elderly, aging parents from having to deal with any more.

But Ellen and Barry who visited my family often, also visited Barry's Aunt Loretta and her family, who lived not fare from us and we all had met on several occasions.  Barry's aunt was not much older than we were and so we all got along. And Aunt Loretta "knew." She knew about his drug use and about the times Ellen had to frantically rush him to the OR because he had passed out from an overdose - more than once. I was petrified for the safety of Jaime, now with just Barry as a parent, and I was not about to hold my tongue.  I spoke to Loretta and offered to raise Jaime and keep her safe while allowing Barry and Loretta's family to be a part of her life.

To my great shock, Loretta, thought she "knew" seemed to be in denial of the seriousness and was more concerned with Barry's job finding out he went to rehab than him getting the help he needed and had promised Ellen he would get. And, she said, if anyone would adopt Jamie it would be her BUT she would NOT "do that" to Barry! I was dismayed, alarmed, angry and felt helpless by choices she was making that did not seem in Jaime's best interest. I feared for her safety but Loretta insisted that Barry could care for her. She eventually got angry with me. In the end, what could I do? They were family and I as nothing - "just" a friend.

I kept in touch. I learned that Jamie did go to live with Loretta's family at some point but then Barry remarried and moved out of state and took her with him to their devastation. They had never legally adopted and had no way to stop it from happening, had wanted to.  Again, I lost touch this time for many years...... decades.

I searched the Internet, Facebook and such for Jamie who is now 30 or close to it.  I racked my brain to remember Aunt Loretta's last name but don't know if I ever even knew it.  But I knew that her husband owned a local exterminating business and tracked that down. I sent an email though the company website.

Today I Got A Phone Call

ME: "Oh thanks so much for calling. I wanted to know if Jamie is OK and to let her know I knew her mother and she was loved...."

Stuart - who identified himself as Jamie's "brother": "She's fine"

ME: "Where does she live?"

I did learn that Barry had died "a long time ago" of AIDS and Jamie was then adopted by Stuart's family.

And that's where the niceties ended and the gloves came off. I had no right to know if she was on the West Coast or east. It was none of my business.  Nasty accusations followed which I bit my tongue and ignored. I told him I just wanted her know she was loved and I never forgot her.

Stuart: "How can you love someone you haven't seen in all these years?" etc., etc. You don't even know her how can you claim to love or care about her?"

ME: "Because I loved her mother, that's why."

Stuart: "Ellen is dead and Jamie is loved by all of us!" he assured me and what was that. She needed to more additional love or words of care. Berating me very angrily, I know not why.

"Where were you all these years. Why weren't you at Ellen's parents' funerals?"

I tried in vain to tell him that I had no idea where Jamie was and that it was his family that chose not to tell me or keep me in the loop. No one had told me of Ellen's parents passing and that was on them, not me and with that, I finally blew it and could remain calm in the face of repeated insults hurled at me. I tired to tell him that you don't stop loving someone after they die. After all, do I not sill love my daughter who is dead?

But is was all useless. I was talking to a well-programmed robot who kept repeating that I could not possibly care about someone I did care about.  I hung up in utter despair.

Why does love have to be so possessive? Why the anger and MEANNESS at someone else who cares for a love done of yours??? What was so terribly wrong with inquiring about the well-being of a friend's daughter? I don't get it at all.

Jamie - if you find this blog post know that I never stopped caring...and that I have photos to share with you...MRiben@AdvocatePublictions.com

I'm here for you and always will be...You were ALWAYS in my heart.  I hope you are happy and healthy and wonder if you are the Jamie Lenner who was an attorney in Denville, NJ.

Poor young Stuart has likely never had anyone he loves die. If he did, he would know that you never forget and your love doesn't end when their life does.  Neither my former husband nor I could remember or ever knew my friend's husband's aunt's last name. Sue me!  I also never knew her parents names either and met them only once or twice after her death.

UPDATE: I went back to the business website through which I had located this young man, Stuart, and sent the following message:

Stuart,
I have no idea what I did to cause you be so angry and rude to me. What is so terribly wrong with inquiring about the well-being of a dear old friend's daughter???
I did not know when Ellens's folks passed away. I met them and her brother for the very first time at her funeral and knew none of her family. I was not a childhood friend of Ellen. I knew since the 70s. But we were close. I was one of the first people she called when Dayla was born followed by the second call about her heart condition. And she confided me about Barry's drug problems. I spoke her just days before she died. We were close friends. Why else would I have even thought of raising her daughter? I have many pictures of Ellen, Barry, Dayla and of Ellen pregnant with Jamie. Why is any of that threatening to you or to her or cause for you to have been mean and nasty to me on the phone??? I have no clue.
You don't stop loving someone when they die, Stuart. Perhaps you are too young to have lost someone you cared about. My daughter is dead 17 years, and I still love her. Ellen was a dear friend and I think of her untimely death and Dayla's - poor tiny thing -  often and wonder about Jamie. What is wrong with that? 
I hope your mom and dad are well and hope that I am not infringing on any boundary to say that. Perhaps you might tell them I send my regards if that is not offensive or wrong to do.
Sincerely,
Mirah

Bring Savaughn 2, and Amrbia, 3, BACK HOME to Their Loving Family

This story must be heard.  PLEASE FORWARD!  

Watch the imbedded video and you will see two loved and very well cared for little  for little girls. 

A relinquishment of parental rights was taken from a 17-year-old with mental health issues without the knowledge or consent of her mother and extended family who were supporting her and the children and helping with their care.

"At 16 and 17  you can't legally  sign a contract for anything EXCEPT to sign over rights to your children!!

Some laws need to be changed. They should have to check to make sure the girls are mentally competent at least.

Of course these girls aren't going to say "oh yes I have mental issues"

A lot of them don't really understand what they are doing, they don't know how hard it is to fight the system

to get your babies back.

Read the whole story and SIGN THE PETITION here

Family Adoption Services - do the right thing for these children and their family!

What's Wrong With Surrogacy

To Americans of means - especially celebs - how one chooses to have a child is a matter of choosing selections from a menu: chow mien or lo mien; red car or blue. "It's just another option."

But it is NOT. Not for the women who risks their lives to serve as Handmaids for those who use them as human incubators.

Renting out her womb to a US couple cost Amraiwadi resident Premila Vaghela, 36, her life. Trying to give a child to the couple, she died on Monday leaving her two sons motherless. But, her family has refused to demand compensation for her death.

Doctors at Pulse Hospital, where Premila was undergoing treatment, said that they would request the biological and adopting/contractual parents  -- who are overjoyed with their new baby that costs his mother her life -- to give more compensation to Premila's family.  Guess they hadn't thought to offer on their own, or were just too busy celebrating their good news.

Premila's mother, however, , more than 80 years old, had anger in her voice. "I have lost my daughter. Now, we don't want anything from anybody," she said. 

Dr Pravin Patel said that she was admitted in the hospital for four days after complaint of pain in the stomach. While she was waiting with her husband for a routine check-up, she got a sudden convulsion and had to be shifted to the operation theatre. "We controlled her fluctuating blood pressure twice and also revived her," he said. Premila's blood pressure was low and the fetus received less blood and oxygen but is OK.

BOOKMARK THIS PAGE, so you can reference it when someone lauds surrogacy as a find "choice" or asks what's wrong with it!

And to Oprah Winfrey who hailed Indian surrogacy as a win-win, I hope you've seen this news article and make a  public retraction. It was shameful watching Winfrey chuckle about a photo of tiny little Indian woman carrying a child for a huge hulking six-foot plus man without a thought to the RISK. 

BEWARE OF TAMMY SMITH & Stones of Grace

Tammy Smith has been found guilty of forgery and conspiracy to commit custodial interference in the case of missing baby Gabriel.

Smith was not charged kidnapping or harming Gabriel, but with conspiring with the baby's mother to sever the parental right's of Gabriel's father, Logan McQuery, so Smith and her husband, Jack, could adopt Gabriel.

Smith, described as being obsessed with baby Gabriel, is also charged with forging a court document challenging McQuery's paternity.

In her closing argument Tuesday, prosecutor Angela Andrews slammed Smith as a manipulative liar, saying, "The defendant wanted this child for herself. She wanted to make Gabriel Johnson her own and she was going to do that at any cost to Logan McQuery."

During her closing argument, Smith's defense attorney, Ann Phillips, told jurors that her client "was not obsessed" and that "it's not a crime to want to adopt" a child.

But Gabriel is by far the only child Tammy Smith tried for. 

She tried for this mother's baby but failed.

AND...here's the scariest part. 

Tammy Smith, guilty of fraud and deceit in adoption practices is owner an operator of Stones of Grace whose mission is:

To give an incredible opportunity to young single mothers or mothers to be, who may feel helpless or hopeless in their ability to raise their child as a single parent and does not want to rely on the government to take care of them.  We want to give them the opportunity to raise their child in a drug free environment while going to school in order to gain a career as well as restoring hope, self love and self respect.

Our vision is to instill Peace, Comfort, Joy and love in young mothers or mothers to be.  We are able to give them peace in knowing that they have adequate food, clothing and shelter for them and their child.  Comfort in knowing that they will get to go to college or career classes to make something of themselves and one day have their own home.  Joy in the ultimate love surrounding them as they grow through healthy friendships, Christian counseling, parenting classes, Christian classes, legal services, Church, Fellowship and leadership opportunities.  Love by helping in the restoration of their families, as well learning how to co-parent with the birth father and his family if the birth father & family desire that. 

Tammy, self-described "good Samaritan" believes that "Stones of Grace will help stop the possibility of child abuse, child abandonment, domestic violence and abortion as well as empowering these women to be loving, caring, independent individuals that can be a great example to their child and others, as well as making a difference in America for the better. " She forgot to mention empower "these women" to commit fraud against the fathers of their babies.


The Stones website provides this information:

Tammi & Jack Smith

2801 East Camelback Road
Phoenix, AZ. 85016
(623) 687-1887

I hope that the Arizona attorney general is investigating this "charitable" organization that is seeking donations via its website.

Finding Fernanda

Finding Fernanda: 

Two Mothers, One Child, and a Cross-border Search for the Truth 

by Erin Siegal

Book review by Mirah Riben

Finding Fernanda is a riveting, powerful, excruciatingly detailed view of the underbelly of international adoption, particularly in – but not limited to – Guatemala.  It is investigative reporting at its finest, deserving of a Pulitzer…and at the same time is a heartfelt drama that makes damn good reading as a real life mystery (which tops any fiction). The author’s passion and writing skill puts the reader right in the midst of every scene of this high stake tale of kidnapping, gray/black market adoption, and international child trafficking.

Despite the title, it is really the story of one mother and her two children taken from her by criminals and her unwavering battle against disbelief, accusations against her, bureaucracy, incompetence, and death threats. Mildred Alvarado is a young mother who lived in a middle class Guatemalan neighborhood with her common-law husband and 3 children. Becoming pregnant again and leaving her cheating man, thrusts the uneducated and easily manipulated Mildred into poverty and makes her the perfect victim of the baby broking adoption pimps who exploit ignorance and poverty for a living. She is at once quite and shy and an extraordinarily brave woman of “fierce dignity” and unwavering determination who at 34 refuses to put on makeup to go to court because her father would “kill her” if he ever knew.

The other mother in the title is a brave American named Betsie Emanuel who – in stark contrast to all other adoptive parents in the book – stands up to the corruption and helps solve the case of Mildred’s two missing daughters from her home computer in Gallatin, Tennessee. Betsie is a stand-out whistle blowing exception to all the other mothers she befriended along what was to be the adoption of her sixth child (including three non-adopted). Others saw the same red flashing lights, the bribery, the lies, the changed names and dates of birth, the duplicate photos of children…and made a choice to ignore it out of “fear” not of retribution, but that they would loose out on obtaining the brass ring they sought. “No one wanted to anger [Hedberg] or risk the chance of losing a referral.” They wanted a child, no matter what the cost or what ethics or laws were bent or broken to obtain their goal.

The other characters in the book are the bible-toting, Jesus-quoting, holier than thou, Sue Hedberg, CEO of Celebrate Children International (CCI) a Christian International adoption agency in Florida and a crew of her Guatemalan “contacts,” lawyers, physicians, intermediaries, and baby finders that comprise a chain of “not me” criminals, the majority of whom – including Hedberg – have gone scot free to continue selling children.  Hedberg earned a salary $209,750 doing “God’s work” and “saving” babies in 2004 with CCI netting $2.5 million. The following year, 2005, the net revenue reached of $4.5 million, and in 2006 Hedberg’s salary was over $250 thousand.  CCI currently has adoption programs in Ethiopia and is setting one up in the Republic of the Congo, inasmuch as Guatemala is closed to US adopters. Shame for the baby brokers and child traffickers, as it’s a country of known for criminal impunity and no law against child selling. On the upside for CCI is the Hague Convention on International Adoption's failure to prevent signatory countries from adopting from non-signatory countries making Ethiopia and the Congo prime targets for agencies like CCI which failed its Hague accreditation.

CCI has been investigated by the State of Florida three times, with 19 complaints filed since 2005. DFC, which has a 3,000 plus page report on their investigation of the agency has no authority in Guatemala and nothing but Hedberg’s total denials to go on.

Whatever CCI knew or didn’t know about Mildred Alvarado’s children or any other questionable adoptions such as that of Karen Abigial are among the “murky” unknown facts washed clean by the laundering of children through a massive chain of unscrupulous and occasionally naive characters. In nations as poor as Guatemala there is a pervasive see no evil attitude toward making a buck.

Other players of note for those within the adoption community include, in no particular order: Susana Luarca, the website GuatAdopt.com, Lauryn Galindo, kidnap victim Karen Abigail adopted by the Monahans of Missouri, the Joint Council on International Adoption, Marvin Bran Galino, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, Guatemalan Judges and government agencies both Guatemalan and American. An entire chapter (6) sidesteps the story-line to detail the depth of the corruption in Guatemalan adoption. 

Between 2008 and 2010, CICGI [the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala] found 90 percent of all children who left Guatemala in adoption had been relinquished, and in many cases, illegitimately so. Some relinquishments were not made voluntarily, one CICIG investigator said, or had been made by women who were not the true biological mothers. More that 60 percent of the transition adoptions contained abnormalities, including “theft and illegal purchase or sale of children, threats and deception to biological mothers, forgery of documents to carry out ‘adoption processes…’” Guatemala’s participation in international adoption in 2008-2010 was a “lucrative form of human trafficking,” CICIG noted…

If ninety percent were relinquished, that leaves 10% abandoned, taken by the state, or truly orphaned. And with a 60% rate of abnormalities, one is very hard pressed to find substantiation to the “anomaly” or “rare” claims of the pro-adoptionist profiteers.

Spoiler alter beyond this point:

Mildred is among a very small handful of Guatemalan mothers whose kidnapped children were miraculously found and returned because they were located before being sent to the US for adoption. However, the majority of the criminals involved have not been charged nor have Mildred and her children been given any compensation for their year-and-a-half ordeal during which the children report being hit and were left with long-term damages. No one in jail, no adoption agency closing, despite the very clear fact that an alleged relinquishment was dated a full month after Mildred had filed missing persons reports for her girls.

This book should be required reading for anyone considering international adoption. And three facts need to be recognized: 1) there is no line between gray and black market adoptions and perfectly legal ones; 2) ethical, reputable adoption agencies can - and do - all too easily unknowingly place children who have been obtained illegally; 3) these atrocities are not limited to Guatemala, which has currently closed adoptions to the US. Any internationally adopted child could be a kidnap victim!  With child trafficking for adoption documented in India, Nepal, Vietnam, China, Ethiopia and elesewhere, prospective adopters need to think long and hard if they want to risk being the recipient of a stolen child.

For more see: FindingFernanda.com 

Who Does Adoption Serve?

How can we as a nation - as a society with any ethics, conscience or moral compass at all -  pretend that adoption is a social service to help children in need when the children in most need are regularly ignored whole adopters pay tens of thousands of dollars for children who may have been stolen or kidnapped or coerced from loving mothers under pretexts? And we promote and encourage more and more family dissolutions via adoptions and reward those who reap the spoils with tax benefits and kudos; societies thanks for the 'good deed' they did in taking someone's child.

In "the old days" twins and triplets were separated by adoption agencies in order to garner two or three adoption placement fees instead of just one, and also so the children could be used as human guinea pigs - without the knowledge or consent of the children or their adopters - studied to help unravel the nurture/nature controversy. Oh, we've evolved!  That is no longer done (we hope).

Now, with domestic infant adoption privatized it's anyone's game!  I recently heard a story of a couple who, after five failed IVF treatments found a family with 3 or 4 kids who could not afford a new baby on the way and decided to place it for adoption. They housed the mother and her children for nine months and adopted the newest member of this family. Then, they shut the door behind them. No further contact with a family they had cared for all that time...full siblings to the child they planned to raise, and no interest in maintaining contact. Whose interest was that in?

About 16 months later, they received a phone call from the attorney who had arranged the adoption. They were informed that the mother was expecting again and wanted them to have the child so the siblings could be raised together.

The adoptive mother had just missed a period and didn't dare dream it was possible that after all the failed IFV she could be pregnant, but she stalled off answering the attorney until three months passed and she was sure it was true.

Well, now, about to have a baby of her "own" she didn't "need" an extra adopted one! It's like the furniture company called and said we just got in some chairs that match that couch you bought, would you like them? And she said, no I already have enough chairs.  This about-to-be-born child, a full sibling to a child she was raising, did not meet HER needs and so she let it go to strangers, never knowing to whom so that "her" adopted son could know his sibling.

A family member of this adoptive mother had two or three sons and said that is the baby-to-be was a girl, she'd like to adopt it. But other family members quickly talked her out of it saying how WEIRD it would be that cousins would be blood brothers. Yes, weird for brothers to be kept in the same extended family unit, but not weird at all to send them off to strangers? HUH?  I guess they feared they'd figure it out  eventually and  they'd likely want to know why neither of these relatives had thought to adopt BOTH of them! That would indeed be WEIRD... for the adopters!

My own family made similar choices. My sister told me decades after loosing my firstborn to adoption that she, newly married at the time, had considered adopting my daughter. The reason she didn't? She feared that I would get my act together and want my daughter back, and that would be too devastating FOR HER - my sister! Again, the prime consideration was what was best for the prospective adopter, not what was best for the child. Let your niece go to strangers in a closed adoption rather than risk some pain to help your sister and niece out in a time of crisis. Nice.

It is always about what was best for the adopters - the ones with all the money, power and control. And so the siblings - already severed from the rest of their family -  were separated from one another.  Against the wishes of the REAL mother who had the best interests of her children - as any King Solomon would note - in mind.  her wishes were ignored. She no longer mattered nor what she wanted. She has given up that right!  And her two children was placed in two closed adoptions and likely will go through life never knowing all the siblings they have, those kept and those placed.

Internationally, this happens all the time. First children are taken away from families and siblings initially and many times another sibling is offered for adoption. In the book Finding Fernanda, an adoptive mother turns down the opportunity to adopt a sibling of a child she is raising! What can an adoption agency do? They can't force anyone to take a child's sibling. The choice lies with the paying client to do the right thing or do what is in their one best interest.

Is such a decision not more reprehensible than a married couple with a kid or two aborting an unintended pregnancy? The child they are saying no to is not being aborted, it - and THEIR child - are being cruelly cast into lives with long-lost blood siblings without a thought to how that will hurt and effect them. Not even a self-protective thought that these kids might hate and blame their aps some day for this awful decision. Just do what it is most convenient in the here and now. Isn't that behavior that is generally - under other cirumstances (such as a pregnant young mother-to-be) defined as IMMATURE and SELFISH??? Doing what feels good right now without thought for future consequences or what is best for your child? But when APS do it no one tells them they are being selfish. 

And we pretend that adoption is serving the best interest of the children? How? How can anyone dare utter that description of adoption when there are no regulations in place to prevent such horrors from occurring? When it is a FREE open MARKET place and those who pay set ALL the rules and set them to suit THEMSELVES and no one else?!

“Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year . . .” The Special Rapporteur, United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, 2003.

What were these separated siblings allegedly saved from? There was no mention in the story of this family having abused or neglected nay of their children. No mention of drug use. No one suggested having the other children rmeoved to "rescue" or 'save" them.

No these kids were separated because of POVERTY!  In the United States of America! families loosing kids and having no control of their placement - simply because they lost their jobs. How do we justify this as in in the children's or the family's best interest? How do we as a society sleep at night tearing families part like this? Not finding other solutions for their problems?

I heard some hisses while this story was being told. Why did the $%&* mother get pregnant if she couldn't afford more kids - and the do it yet again?  We don't know how that happened whether it was  defective birth control or lack of knowledge as to proper use of birth control. But blaming the mother is no solution either. In Guatemala, for instance, women have to get birth control injections on the sly because it is such a macho culture that their husbands insist on keeping them pregnant and disallow any birth control use.

"Over the past 30 years, the number of families from wealthy countries wanting to adopt children from other countries has grown substantially. At the same time, lack of regulation and oversight, particularly in the countries of origin, coupled with the potential for financial gain, has spurred the growth of an industry around adoption, where profit, rather than the best interests of children, takes centre stage. Abuses include the sale and abduction of children, coercion of parents, and bribery."UNICEF's position on Inter-country adoption.