How much I changed (Part 1) #BABYVERONICA

REBLOG (worth a read)


By Trace DeMeyer (now Trace Lara Hentz) (I'm legally dropping my adoptee name in 2014)

I started this blog in 2009! How little I knew then. I tried to write a regular post about the subject of adoption, my own experience of search and reunion, my learning curve, what I hate about the billion dollar adoption industry, and the history I was finding about the Indian Adoption Projects and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), all of it. I looked at books, academic papers, everything I could find.

First I had to learn Google Blogger then I did as the marketers suggest: use social media and share your blog posts on Facebook and Twitter to get new readers. (Thank you all for reading and adding me to your networks!)

I met many adoptees after my memoir One Small Sacrifice came out. These Native American adoptees needed to tell their stories which lead to the first anthology TWO WORLDS.

Then along came a little girl named Veronica. I was utterly changed. To think a mother would (and did) adopt out her infant (when the baby had a young Cherokee dad who was not notified), I really thought this was an odd phenomena. This was not something that happens now. It's not the 50s, 60s or early 70s! We have the Indian Child Welfare Act, even it was passed in 1978. This was not supposed to happen!

What would make a mother do this? Money was all I could think or possibly revenge. (Even if this was a supposedly open adoption, Veronica's Cherokee dad wasn't in the picture and she was not adoptable since that is a violation of federal law!)

Veronica is a Cherokee child. We see how Veronica was ensnared in the racketeering industry called adoption.  Veronica was sold! We really don't know how the Nightlight Adoption Agency circumvented ICWA but they did. Veronica was moved across state lines and the tribe was not notified correctly. All this smelled rotten to me.

I know about the Supreme Court case and I know that Indians don't win cases but come on! This is a child who is not with her tribe or her own family because her non-Indian mother adopted her out? How does this happen in this century when there is a federal law that was enacted to prevent this?

Well, this case was my wake up call. And there are other cases where evidently ICWA is not being adhered to, even if it is federal law. WHY? Indians can live anywhere and do. You can find a Lakota or Inuit in Los Angeles or Miami or Dallas.  We have judges and social workers in cities everywhere asking how can this be? If the mother (or father) is Lakota or Inuit, shouldn't they be in South Dakota or Alaska? NO!

These authority figures learned as little as I did about Indians in school. If they know so little, they shouldn't even be allowed to handle a case with an Indian child. If they haven't been to an Indian reservation, they should recuse themselves from any case involving an Indian family.

What they don't know is dangerous. This is how children will slip through like Veronica did. And that is not supposed to happen with ICWA.

Indians are still living here in the USA! 

(continued) Eight part series is posted under HOW I CHANGED (part 4 was deleted)
How much I changed (Part 2) #IndianProblem

#BabyVeronica - Yale Conference in February

Yale NALSA Event on Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl

Posted on January 29, 2014 by TURTLE TALK

Deconstructing the “Baby Veronica” Case: Implications for the Future of the Indian Child Welfare Act

Friday, February 21, 5:15-6:45 p.m.
Yale Law School, New Haven, CT
Panelists:

• Jacqueline Pata, Executive Director, National Congress of American Indians
• Joel West Williams, Staff Attorney, Native American Rights Fund

In June 2013, the Supreme Court decided Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, a widely publicized case involving the adoption of a Cherokee child by non-Natives over the objections of her Cherokee father. At the heart of the controversy was the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law designed to protect the best interests of Native children and promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families. This panel will explore the history behind this landmark law, the current landscape of Indian child welfare, and the implications of the “Baby Veronica” decision for the future placement of Native children. Additionally, panelists will discuss how their organizations collaborated with both tribal and non-tribal stakeholders to develop legal, media, and other advocacy strategies for the case as part of the Tribal Supreme Court Project.

Registration: http://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?439305

Note from Trace: I will be there and will let you know details afterwards on this blog... If you remember I wrote several posts on this blog and was published nationally in Indian Country Today Media about this case. I conferred with NCAI as well. My feelings now? I believe the Dept. Of Justice needs to interview Veronica's birthmother about her dealings with the Nightlight Adoption Agency. We need the truth and I do not believe we have it yet. In my humble view, this case is not over.

Numbers

By Trace A. DeMeyer

I was asked recently how many domestic adoptions take place in America each year. I did some research and was surprised to see how much the numbers are shrinking, which means the Nightlight Adoption Agency who handled the Baby Veronica transaction must be very nervous and scouring poor communities like Indian reservations to snatch more infants to sell to people like the Capobiancos (shown at right).
Yes, I am cynical these days. The agencies are going to push to keep their profit margins somehow. They are going to charge more and more to keep their doors open and pay desperate mothers well to relinquish.

 

Infant Domestic Adoption: A Gradual Slowdown

Every five years, NCFA hires a researcher to survey state administrators in order to determine the total number of infant domestic adoptions in the U.S. As reported in Adoption Factbook V, there were 18,078 infant domestic adoptions in 2007, down from 22,291 in 2002, the last year in which the survey was conducted. The first NCFA survey (1982) identified 17,602 infant domestic adoptions. Since the peak year of 1992, when 26,672 adoptions were identified, the number of private domestic adoptions has dropped each year.
One of the reasons for the decreasing number of domestic adoptions may be a parallel decrease in the percentage of unmarried women relinquishing children for adoption. According to data from the National Survey of Family Growth, relinquishments have declined from nearly nine percent in the 1970s to under one percent of births to never-married women by 1995 (the last available data year). Reasons offered by researchers include an increased social acceptance of single motherhood, and a higher number of unmarried mothers in their 20s rather than their teens.

Read more here: http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=2309

"Inversion" (please read my friend Daniel's blog)

What if I make every effort to help my child through their grief?

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Daniel Ibn Zayd

This is the 18th question in the series: “Anti-adoption month: 30 answers to 30 questions on adoption” [link].

The following reply was posted to a blog whose author doesn’t seem to mind the pain and loss adoption would bring to her adopted child as well as to her family:

I do want to be as prepared as possible to help my child grieve and empathize with his or her loss. I know that no matter how much we love our child he or she will still have an incredible loss. I know this. I understand this. I want to learn more about it so I can help. That is very clear from my blog. I have said nothing other than just that. so I don’t understand why someone would infer the total complete opposite.

Answer: The “inference” of the “total complete opposite” comes from the fact that your statement is what we call an “inversion”, a reversal of logic that is designed to be the “correct” response, to fall nicely on the ears, while continuing down and covering up the same destructive path that is represented by adoption. By this I mean to say that it becomes obvious at some point when someone has studied the “talking points” of a discussion and thinks they have come up with the “correct answer” that will allow them to do what it is that they want to do while simultaneously ignoring the basic gist of the argument, as well as the negative fallout thereof. If I realize the mistake I make in a logic problem after I am finished solving it, and correct it, this is very different from cheating before I begin working on it. A more honest approach would be that of horrifying web sites like this one: “Homestudy Boot Camp".
Anyone who is attuned to this as a tactic is thus left completely befuddled and nonplussed by the abject hypocrisy and double-dealing of such a statement, as in this reply, which is attempting to show some kind of empathy, but for pain that she is directly the cause of. It’s like a biologist feigning pity for the insects he skewers in a display case; it’s like the famous Walrus and Carpenter from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, crying over the oysters they led out of their homes and plan to consume. These are the tears of a very dangerous crocodile; this is stacking the deck; this is gaming the system; this is an Orwellian inversion bordering on propaganda. There’s work for you in the Democratic Party if you should want it.

Read more here: http://danielibnzayd.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/what-if-i-make-every-effort-to-help-my-child-through-their-grief/


I can hear the Capobianco's saying this about Veronica Brown and her LOSS. They are the perfect example of this "inversion" thinking. This, readers of this blog, is what we are dealing with... As I have said before, once you SEE this, you can't UNSEE it... That is The Truth... Trace

Facebook discussing Dusten Brown, Jessica Munday #BABY VERONICA

ON FACEBOOK:

Tara Servatius Full Text:

 

Yesterday on WTMA I questioned how the Capobiancos could tell Dr. Phil last week that Veronica's biological family would be involved in her life -- and then this week attempt to ruin her biological father, Dusten Brown financially by allowing their attorneys to sue him and the Cherokee Nation for $1 million. The suit cannot go forward without the Capobiancos giving attorneys who worked for them PRO BONO the right to sue, which it appears they are doing out of spite. Is this in Veronica's best interest? 

Here's the response I got from the Capobianco's spokesperson Jessica Munday: "Veronica is doing wonderfully and the attorneys have every right to sue the Cherokee Nation. Come on Tara. You know that Brown isn't going to have to pay a dime. She is home where she should be and her teen years will be far from hell. The fact of the matter is that Veronica's birth father should have never taken her in the first place. The US Supreme Court confirmed our belief that this was wrong. More than 30 attorneys DONATED their time for nearly two years (think about that and let is sink in for a moment). This was and always has been about a birth mother that was abandoned, chose life for her child and gave her a better life than she could provide and a set of parents that did what any parents would do to reunite with their daughter. As a mother and woman, you should be appalled. A state court erroneously allowed her birth father to rip her from her family and keep her isolated from them and her birth mother for more than 20 months. This adoption occurred solely because he unequivocally rejected his parental rights. Perhaps you are unaware that he testified that he was more than happy to relinquish his parental rights so long as Veronica’s birth mother assumed full responsibility for Veronica. In other words, he made it clear that Veronica was not his problem, at least when it came to parental responsibilities. The blatant lawlessness by the birth father and his Tribe created an enormously dangerous situation for an innocent child whom the birth father and Tribe sequestered on tribal lands away from her only parents. Thankfully, with support from many incredible people, intelligent and dedicated people, we were able to bring Veronica back home where she belongs."

 

Post by Standing our Ground for Veronica Brown.

Capobiancos sit down for Dr. Phil interview #BABY VERONICA

The adoptive parents of 4-year-old Veronica Capobianco said in a television interview that they promise to keep her biological family a part of her life.

Oct 30, 2013.

By MICHAEL OVERALL Tulsa World Staff Writer |

Speaking publicly for the first time since winning custody, Baby Veronica's adoptive parents promised Tuesday to keep her biological family a part of her life.
Appearing briefly on national television, Matt and Melanie Capobianco confirmed that they have stayed in touch with Dusten Brown and other members of Veronica's Cherokee family.

"It's been positive," Melanie Capobianco said, "and we feel really good about it."

No recent footage of Veronica was included, but the Capobiancos apparently sat down for the interview over the weekend at their home in the suburbs of Charleston, S.C.

"All the people who love her, all of her family members," Melanie Capobianco said, "will be in contact with her."

A short segment on the "Dr. Phil" show included video shot while the Capobiancos were in Oklahoma to fight for custody, where the Brown family waged a court battle for weeks in hope of keeping Veronica.

Riding in the back seat of an SUV, the Capobiancos drove past the Cherokee Nation headquarters near Tahlequah, where they spotted Veronica in the yard outside of a VIP house where the Browns were staying at the time.

Brown said goodbye to Veronica at that house Sept. 23, when the Oklahoma Supreme Court cleared the way for the Capobiancos to take her.

But the video of Veronica, obviously shot from a distance, was apparently taken Aug. 15, after reality television personality Troy "The Locator" Dunn appeared at a Tulsa news conference with the Capobiancos.

Dunn tried to approach the house where Veronica was staying, but Cherokee deputies turned him away.

With the Capobiancos filing a writ of habeas corpus later that day, the incident led to the first of several court appearances that ultimately sent Veronica back to South Carolina.

Following the adoptive parents while they were in Oklahoma, Dunn had offered to be a "neutral" mediator between the Brown and Capobianco families.

But he was a registered member of the Coalition for the Protection of Indian Children and Families, a group founded by the Capobiancos' spokeswoman to lobby for changes to the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Brown used the law to challenge Veronica's adoption and take custody of her in 2011.

The Capobiancos appealed the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled this summer that the law didn't apply to Brown because he didn't have custody of Veronica at birth.

The Browns and Capobiancos have mutually agreed not to comment anymore to the media, Dunn told the Dr. Phil audience.

Although South Carolina is no longer seeking Brown's extradition, he still faces a felony complaint of "custodial interference" for refusing to hand over Veronica while appealing the case in Oklahoma.

The complaint could make him subject to arrest if he ever visits South Carolina, according to attorneys.

SOURCE: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/adoptive-parents-in-baby-veronica-case-speak-on-dr-phil/article_c3f1dbbd-0c59-5f81-ad16-202ca0deeb5e.html

Adoption Corruption Never Sleeps #BABY DESARAY/DESIRAI

Nightlight Adoption, Roger Godwin & South Carolina Selling Baby Desirai to  Child Abusers

What’s wrong with this picture? Same story- same adoption agency, same two states, same lawyers involved, same laws broken but a different baby and, so far, a completely different reaction by the state governor’s as well.
Yes, Baby Desirai could almost as easily be called Baby Veronica Part Deux. It’s like a Hollywood sequel for the worst movie you have ever seen.

Just Read: http://www.adoptionbirthmothers.com/adoption-corruption-baby-desirais-forced-adoption/

A Glimmer of Hope #ICWA #BABYVERONICA

In recent days, because of the Baby V case and all the publicity and drama that ensued and the unjust decisions to hand Ronnie over to the SC adopters, she is still a Cherokee child and a sovereign citizen of her nation.  Judges everywhere should preside and rule by the Indian Child Welfare Act, and case by case recognize that Indian children are everywhere, not only on reservations.  American Indian children need to be protected and raised by their tribal kin.  ICWA is still a valid standing federal law. Read this case (below).  Last night I was a guest on John Kane's Let's Talk Native. One of the things he asked, is there anything for Dusten to do to get Ronnie back? I answered that if there are improprieties or collusion or another court finds that Nightlight Adoption Agency and those in the law profession acted improperly or illegally, then there is still a glimmer of hope. Because of Ronnie Brown, this hope exists and discussion continues around the world!... Trace

Podcast: LISTEN

 

A Positive ICWA Case Out of California

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Kate Fort

We almost never see a positive case out of California. Here is one (In re C.S.), and the words of the juvenile referee Sobel from state court:

The court granted the section 388 petitions filed by mother and father, concluding, “We have an American Indian child. That’s different. We have siblings who are with relatives. That’s different. We have a new baby who has been safely in the mother’s care since the [non-detain] petition was filed. That’s different. So, when you say that the children who are placed with foster parents at birth, that is their parent, the parent that is there night and day, you are correct, in every case, that’s correct. But the point of this is what happens to parents in the part that we call reunification? Where at some point do the parents earn the right to become those people? Where is that transference into being able to be a parent? Now, with the two other children . . . , they are with relatives. Those relatives are glad to step back and be relatives. If they need to adopt, they will. But the fact is they are grandparents. They prefer to be grandparents. I have two parents in complete compliance with their original case plan and American Indian. As to [C.’s older sibling and half-sibling], there’s no question there are changed circumstances here. The issue is best interest and I find it’s in the best interest of [the older sibling and half-sibling] to grant the 388 and place the children home of parents: mom for [the half-sibling and sibling], dad and mom for [the sibling]. We’ve already taken [the baby] off the track [by dismissing the non-detain petition as to her]. . . . [C.] is American Indian. She has three siblings. Those siblings are going home. . . . I am telling you, from my heart, an American Indian child belongs in an American Indian home, especially when that home has siblings in it and parents who are appropriate. There is no question that ICWA requires that I do what is right under ICWA; that I do what’s right for this family, understanding and knowing that C. loves [her de facto parents] both as a primary attachment. . . .    I’m granting mother[’s] and father’s 388 as to C., finding there are changed circumstances and that it is in the child’s best interest to be returned to her parents.”

#Baby Veronica proceedings update

Dissents in the Lift of Stay in Baby Girl Case and Additional Coverage of Proceedings

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Kate Fort

From the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Here.

 In addition to Veronica’s interests, the Cherokee Nation has been a party to all of the proceedings in the courts of South Carolina, in the United States Supreme Court, and in the courts of this State. As such, the Cherokee Nation has a direct and substantial interest in seeing that Veronica’s rights as an Indian child and member of the Cherokee Nation are fully protected, including the right to the special best interests determination under the law of the case. It would be virtually impossible for any court to make this special best interests determination without hearing from the Cherokee Nation.
Reif, V.C.J.

Everything in the life of Baby Girl has changed since 2011, and therefore, I cannot join the majority’s decision to dissolve the temporary stay and to deny original jurisdiction.1 Although this is a complicated case, we should accept our legal responsibility to follow established law in making a determination having such a profound impact on the life of this child.
Gurich, J.

H/T Constitutional Law Prof Blog
Today’s Tulsa World coverage here (including a discussion of the contempt charges in South Carolina).

Nightlight Adoption Agency: Power Money and Corruption #BABY VERONICA

Visit Cassi’s Adoption Truth! She has taken the court transcripts from Adoptive Couple vs Baby Girl and put the facts and half truths in a timeline that really does tell the story.

Click: Veronica Rose Brown – A Father’s Fight

 

From Claudia's blog Musings of the Lame:

Unethical is LEGAL and Acceptable in AdoptionLand

First off, I NEED you to keep in mind that while we are horrified that this could happen to a father and he has to fight for the right to parent his own daughter, remember that THIS HAPPENS EVERYDAY in ADOPTIONLAND.  Everyday, an adoption agency and adoption attorneys play this game to keep biological fathers in the dark because it makes the ADOPTIONS EASIER!  And, yes, it is wrong, it is unethical but it is LEGAL because as a society we have turned away from caring about the rights of the natural families, and care only about whether or not people get the children that they so desire. It is legal because the adoption laws in this country have been influenced by the powerful adoption attorneys and agencies who make a profit from the separation of families and therefore, want to break up even more. It is legal because those who are hurt by these laws do not have the power, the money or the influence to fight these laws and when we do, people dismiss it by saying “that’s an exception, many adoptions are beautiful.”

Ethics? Not with Power, Money, and Influence in Adoption

The other thing I want you to please look at is this excellent diagram that was making it’s way around Facebook and is credited to my knowledge to Heidi Mowry. Can we think about the power, the money or the influence connected to Matt and Melanie Capobianco?

Now go right now and read Cassi’s post!!  http://www.adoption-truth.com/2013/09/veronica-rose-brown-fathers-fight_11.html

#Baby Desaray update #Nightlight

Shawnee awarded custody of infant

OKLAHOMA CITY— An Oklahoma judge has awarded custody of Desaray, a four-month old Native American girl to the Absentee Shawnee Tribe following a South Carolina couple's attempt to adopt the infant. Baby Desaray was born in May in Oklahoma. A couple in South Carolina who sought to adopt her returned with her to their home. But the infant's biological father sought custody. Because Desaray's biological mother is a tribal member, the Absentee Shawnee Tribe stepped in and the tribe was awarded custody last week. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 has federally mandated that Native children should be placed with other tribal members if the parent is unable. Raymond W. Godwin and Nightlight Christian Adoption Agency is also responsible for this case.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Nightlight is a corporation with Laura Godwin, its CEO/director, and Ronald Stoddart as Principal Officer for tax purposes. In 2011 alone, they grossed $2,747,914. Nightlight is licensed in Colorado, California, South Carolina and in Kentucky so far. 

Now in two lawsuits over Native American babies they attempted to place for adoption...

Raymond W. Godwin, called an unethical adoption attorney, was the original adoption attorney for Matt and Melanie Capobianco and is also involved in this dispute called #BABY DESARAY.   His wife Laura is the director of the Nightlight adoption agency that handled the Baby Veronica placement/adoption.

- http://www.adoptionbirthmothers.com/the-unethical-adoption-seizure-of-veronica-brown/

The Plan for #BABYVERONICA

Prayers are sent from around Mother Earth for the Dusten Brown family in Oklahoma

No matter what we see on TV or read in the news, we know Great Spirit has a plan.  If adoption needs to be in the national spotlight, Veronica and her family were chosen to do this work... and it's hard and anguishing work.  

The dark chapter of Native American's adoptions brought about the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 which was greatly needed to end the wholesale removals of Indian children to non-Indian parents.

Veronica must be raised by her dad Dusten and family. That is ICWA's federal law. The families met in court today to make important decisions regarding Veronica's future and best interest.

Keep a prayer that Great Spirit will protect the Brown family.  Keep a prayer for family preservation.  Keep a prayer that Veronica is safe from the media insanity surrounding her and her family.  Keep a prayer that the Capobianco's receive the message to leave Oklahoma immediately and end their crusade and insanity.... 

 

MEDIA UPDATE:  hearing-regarding-veronica

 

Can you help?

Hague Complaint Registry

Send the Hague a short letter about the Baby Veronica Case and report that the Nightlight Adoption Agency violated the Indian Child Welfare Act (more than once) and to please shut them down.

http://adoption.state.gov/hague_convention/agency_accreditation/complaints.php

#‎FirstNations‬ in Canada allege that discriminatory funding deprives tribes of services they need to keep families together. So, "children are being sent into institutional care by the thousands... It looks a lot like the pattern under residential schools." We have the same problem in ‪#‎SouthDakota‬! 

Sign Petition: http://lakota.cc/172NUI3  Read: http://lakota.cc/15OQqzh

Oklahoma governor declines to sign warrant to extradite Dusten Brown #BABYVERONICA

Upcoming court action

Wednesday: South Carolina Family Court will hear motions from Brown and the Cherokee Nation.

Aug. 23: Deadline for Brown to contest South Carolina's order in Oklahoma court.

Sept. 4: A Cherokee tribal court will consider extending a temporary guardianship for Veronica's stepmother and grandparents, potentially claiming jurisdiction over the case.

Sept. 12: Brown to return to Sequoyah County Court for a hearing on his extradition.

Veronica and her biological father, Dusten Brown, in Oklahoma in April.

Oklahoma governor declines to sign warrant to extradite Dusten Brown to South Carolina to face charge in Veronica case

• Glenn Smith
• Posted: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 2:19 p.m., Updated: Wednesday, August 14, 2013 8:23 a.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declined Tuesday to act on South Carolina’s extradition warrant for Dusten Brown until the birth father of Veronica has a chance to challenge the legality of his arrest for failing to turn her over to her adoptive parents on James Island.

Fallin said she had received Gov. Nikki Haley’s signed warrant seeking Brown’s extradition to South Carolina and had spoken to her counterpart in the Palmetto State. But Fallin said in a statement she has declined Haley’s request to sign the warrant until Brown has a chance to contest the action at a Sept. 12 court hearing in Sequoyah County, Okla.

Related Content

• Capobiancos in Oklahoma on quest to bring Veronica home, press conference set for today

“This is a difficult and sad situation for everyone involved, and Gov. Haley is working with law enforcement, the state of Oklahoma, and the family to resolve it as quickly as legally possible,” said Doug Mayer, Haley’s spokesman, by email in response. “Regardless of the varying personal opinions on this case, it is every governor’s first priority to uphold the rule of law and that is what must happen here. Both the U.S. and South Carolina Supreme Courts have spoken and the governor remains committed to returning baby Veronica back home safely.”

Brown is wanted in Charleston County on a custodial-interference charge for failing to surrender his 3-year-old daughter to Matt and Melanie Capobianco. He surrendered to Oklahoma authorities on Monday but was quickly released on a $10,000 bond. South Carolina authorities are now trying to get him back in custody and sent to South Carolina.

The Capobiancos, expressing frustration at the delay in reuniting with Veronica, vowed Monday to travel to Oklahoma and retrieve the little girl, whom they described as a “captive.” Word surfaced late Tuesday that they had indeed traveled to the Sooner State and planned to hold a press conference in Tulsa this morning.

A statement from Fallin’s office said she “believes that Mr. Brown should have the opportunity to argue his case in a court of law, and she will not act on the rendition order before that date. However, the governor encourages both the Capobianco family and Mr. Brown to reach a resolution outside of court as quickly as possible.”

Read more:  HERE

Capobianco Press Conference: here

The adoption industry's ugly side Op-Ed (from NCAI)

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/the-ugly-side-of-the-adoption-industry-90091.html

Great Column on BlogHer: http://www.blogher.com/baby-veronica-growing

ALARMING!

ON TWITTER: Krista Robertson @kdrobertson

is directly connected to Jessica Munday PR agent for the Capobiancos:

http://www.trio-solutions.com/resources/articles/nonprofit_nook.html

The UGLY MESS surrounding #BabyVeronica

By Trace A. DeMeyer
 

Have you watched the TV program WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, a not-so-subtle sales pitch for the Mormon’s expensive website ancestry.com?  Apparently everyone wants to know who they are these days and solve a mystery. OK, let's have them solve an adoption case of identity mystery!

There is one little Cherokee girl about to become a mystery herself.  Veronica Brown is going to lose one family and join another.  Her life is about to become a lie and her birth certificate will make her adoptive parents her birth-parents on paper. Her amended birth certificate will leave out everything that's actually true.

Yesterday non-Indian judges ordered her father’s arrest and ordered this nearly 4-year-old child to be transitioned immediately to non-Indian adoptive parents, the Capobiancos in South Carolina.  

It blows the mind! Veronica only knows her family as dad Dusten, stepmom Robin, her older sister Kelsey and her grandparents.  How will the Capobiancos ever explain taking her away from the only family she's known for almost 2 years?

It amazes me how the adoption industry convinces infertile adoptive parents to buy babies, like babies are too young to remember anything and we won’t have any desire to know who we really are. It’s ridiculous! Babies are not blank slates.  We have our own blood, ancestry and DNA memory. 

For as long as I can remember I tried to question my adoptive parents about why I was given up, where are my parents, who am I?  Veronica will do this, too.  Baby adoptees do become adult adoptees who search for their history, who ask questions, who speak out.  If I could have opened my file at age 12, I would have, believe me. I had to know the truth. Instead I waited and opened my adoption at age 22 with a judge in Wisconsin. I read my file, got my name. Much later I found out my dad would have raised me but just like Veronica's biological mother, my mother Helen didn't tell my father Earl.

For many adoptive parents, they still do not get it: you do not OWN us, nor will you ever own us, make us your own or become our ‘real’ parents.

As I expected, very few in mainstream media were asking adoptees like me how we felt about being adopted or this particular case.  Did you see any adoptees on CNN or Dr. Phil? Absolutely not.

I gave a statement to Suzette Brewer of Indian Country Today published on July 19… Months ago, I spoke with a producer at CBS and he said my story is so much like this Veronica case but 50 years later.  Later, producer Tim Howard at NPR didn’t use my comments or adoption story or my search for my birthfather for his Radio Lab story. Howard interviewed two more Native adoptees I told him about. Not one word we said hit the news. 

Why? For far too long, adoptees were not on anyone’s radar, not until Baby Veronica Brown made headlines.  Adoptees are supposed to be living with their forever families happy as clams, invisible and silent. Media won't ask about what adoption will do to Veronica physically and emotionally.

The adoption industry has made it their mission to make adoptive parents the focus, the heroes who “save” children (and pay out big money for the privilege). The adoption industry has convinced the public that adoptees are happy (add grateful) being adopted.

This is how this case is messed up: Veronica doesn’t need to be saved.  She’s not an orphan.  She has two living parents:  a mother who abandoned her and got paid and her dad who fought to keep her and raise her. 

In Veronica’s case, both birthfamilies could have decided who would raise Veronica, and not place her in a stranger adoption.  If Christy Maldonado needed money, all she had to do was tell Dusten Brown the truth and hand Baby Veronica over.

This is where it’s get fishy: A pregnant Maldonado signs a contract with the Capobiancos, ends all contact with her ex Dusten Brown, and the Nightlight Christian Adoption Agency brokers the deal. The Capobiancos paid the agency, paid Maldonado’s expenses, paid the hospital, paid lawyers and took Veronica shortly after birth.  (read this: a very revealing yet disturbing update on Christy Maldonado, the birthmother:  https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/12/selling-christy-maldonado-150831)

That was one eager adoption agency who cared little about Veronica’s Cherokee tribal status or federal law.  Nightlight lawyers skirted ICWA by submitting error-filled paperwork about Dusten to the Cherokee Nation. That way the adoption could proceed. The adoption agency paved the way and laughed all the way to the bank.

This adoption never should have happened. Those devious lawyers must have waited on pins and needles knowing how the Indian Child Welfare Act prevents child removals like this one from happening.  Then Dusten got into the fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

It is an ugly mess, an ugly truth, cruel in the extreme and one which Veronica will not be able to escape. Experience tells us that it will not end well for the adoptive parents and in the end there will be no winners, only a great deal of loss and trauma for everyone involved, especially Veronica. 

How does adoption "save" Veronica? It doesn't.

In the end, it’s about money, an infertile couple who expects to raise the baby they bought, and a corrupt billion dollar adoption industry.


UPDATE: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/11/dusten-brown-returns-oklahoma-evades-south-carolina-150829

AP STORY:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/biological-father-of-cherokee-indian-girl-ordered-to-leave-iowa-return-to-oklahoma/2013/08/11/8a3b25f0-02ab-11e3-bfc5-406b928603b2_story.html 

UPDATE: TULSA WORLD: http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Baby_Veronicas_family_says_arrest_of_her_father_wont/20130811_11_A12_ULNSho116787 

GREAT POST: http://abortedadoption.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/80-dear-baby-veronica.html 

ANOTHER GREAT POST with great comments! http://theadoptedones.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/dear-adoptive-parent-community/