The [Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl] case has set off alarms among the tribes, and some child welfare experts, who consider the law the “gold standard” in attempting to keep children with their biological parents. Nineteen states and the United States have filed briefs defending the law.
April 15, 2013
Baby Veronica "deserves to be treated as a unique, multiethnic individual..."
"... whose best interests are not inexorably dictated by her blood connection to a tribal member."
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“She deserves to be treated as a unique, multiethnic individual whose best interests are not inexorably dictated by her blood connection to a tribal member,” the brief said.
She does, sure, but what is really appalling is this:
in many states Brown as an unwed father would have little say.
Veronica, whose mother is Hispanic, is 3/256th Cherokee
That makes Elizabeth Warren seem like a full blood.
Honestly though, how good can any law be that depends so much on distant ancestry?
I am all for parental rights - especially for fathers, since the law so clearly tilts the table to mothers - but some decisions need to be irrevocable, and this is one of them.
The law cannot permit a father who signed away rights to his child at least twice, even if he now claims ignorance or less than full comprehension, to yank a child away after the fact from adoptive parents who are completely innocent.
Finally, this bullshit about "tribes" needs to end.
Want sovereignty as a member of a sovereign tribe? Fine. Live on tribal lands, work on tribal lands, marry a fellow tribe-member, send your kids to a tribal school; otherwise, you're just a regular American like everyone else. A world in which anyone can "officially" be deemed "3/256th Cherokee" is a world gone insane.
I hope "dad" loses.
The baby, now a 3 1/2 year old, should stay with the adopted parents. Brown signed the papers and gave up his rights.
Will the court think of the child?
Does being 1/326 American qualify one as a US citizen? If not then what is this idiocy of tribal sovereignity?
Damnit! I'm unable to scan a document for your reading pleasure, but my father was a tribal member and over the years I've received money from the Bureau of Indian Affairs concerning relatives that were awarded money for land that they had lost.
This document is from the BIA and what I wanted to show everyone is titled "Data for Heirship Finding and Family History". In this instance a cousin of mine was denied heirship because he was born out of wedlock.
This is Minnesota Statute 525.172 (1984)
3/256 tribalism vs. removing a child from a stable loving family, and the only parents she has ever known.
I thought the Dawes Act covered all of this - American citizens and stuff.
I guess all citizens are equal, but some are more equal than others.
PS How do Cherokees vote?
I'd ordinarily be surprised if they didn't vote R, but a lot of West Coast Japanese supposedly vote D.
is 3/256th Cherokee
Good lord, I probably have more native american blood than that.
Agreed with Tim and Freeman. If you declare (twice!) that you don't want custody of the child, you do not get to change your mind later on. In the first place (which might as well be the sole place), it's hideous for the child.
Since Mom is Hispanic and Cherokee, does that make her a "red Hispanic"?
No do overs. Read the crap you are signing and get married before you have kids so you can have some rights.
Guess he was ok giving his kid to the birth mom without parental rights as long as that meant there was no bill due for him in child support.
Selfish.
I'd like to think that a biological father would love his child enough to know what is best for the child.
SCOTUS should follow King Solomon and order the child's spinal cord be cut with scissors.
Since Dad signed over his adoptive rights but this Indian Act applies the only thing to do is try to place the kid with some injuns other than Dad. If no injuns can be found, then the original couple gets them.
Clement's argument that the Indian Act is an unconstitutional race based law is a great argument.
Why would anyone adopt when years later your child can be ripped from your family and placed with total strangers?
Of course if baby Veronica had been aborted.....this would be a non story, wouldn't it.
Is it cynical of to think that the bioDad -- and his new wife -- want this kid because she will provide them with money as a "native American"?
BioDad is being selfish. Wouldn't it be great if the Court said that?
Ban all private adoptions and private adoption agencies. No money should ever be transacted when I child loses its birth parents, and needs a family.
We're dealing with parental rights, something that shouldn't be signed off without some due process.
We should encourage and help parents actually love and parent their child.
I hate the adoption argument with pro-lifers.
If I'm going love a baby enough to give birth, help me love my baby don't try to give it off to a 'more deserving couple' and throw the birth mom and dad in the trash.
What about that part of the Constitution which purports that Native American tribes are basically internal sovereign nations?You know that text thing.But Daddy does not deserve this child.Loving caring parents are better for children.But that multi culti belong to the village crap has got to go.
Renee,
The guy signed the adoption papers. You can waive your constitutional rights, which he did by signing the papers.
Let's treat adults like adults. He got cold feet and now is using this silly law as a second bite at the apple.
Under specific circumstances her would relinquish, that didn't happen.
Where was his attorney?
I think all birth parents should be appointed an attorney, by the state/tribe before an adoption.
"Maldonado decided to give up her child for adoption, and through an agency chose the Capobiancos, who supported her through the rest of the pregnancy and were in the delivery room when Veronica was born. Matt Capobianco cut the umbilical cord.
Maldonado, in a brief to the Supreme Court supporting the Capobiancos, said Brown provided no support and never inquired about the baby. He contends that he tried numerous times to contact her, as did his parents, but she refused to acknowledge the efforts.
“She told me she didn’t want to hear from me no more,” Brown said. “It was either respect her wishes or bug her. Honestly, I wish I would have bugged her a lot more.”
As Brown prepared to deploy to Iraq, he was served with adoption papers. He signed them, he said, thinking it simply transferred sole custody to Maldonado."
Major problems with parental rights.... adoptive parents should NEVER be in the delivery room.
Why was this agency? How much did they profit from producing a baby for the adoptive parents.
What if the birth mother changed her mind at birth?
The ICWA leads to the worst kind of uncaring racist bullshit. It's got to go.
Renee, you seem to be laboring under the assumption that how the proceedings affect the adults is what matters. It is not. Adoption has nada to do with which adults are "more deserving" get "thrown in the trash." This may be news to you but some adults simply do not want to parent their child and recognize that the child still has a right to a decent life. What the hell is wrong with that?
"...adoptive parents should NEVER be in the delivery room..."
Says who? You? Who died and made you an expert?
And I'm very sorry if this guy wasn't adult enough to made adult decisions, but can you explain to me why the child should pay the price for that?
(Sorry for the typos. Need moar coffee.)
It's not their baby, it's the birth mother's baby until the JUDGE says it is their baby.
"why the child should pay the price for that? "
Funny you talk about money, how much money did the adoptive couple pay for the agency fee?
He signed away his right to be the child's father twice.
Yes, ban private adoption. You either love that baby enough to take government help in raising it, or you should hate it enough to let the government (which doesn't pay its workers in icky dirty money, but trades in unicorn farts and fairy dreams) find a home for it. Or just kill it, that's cool, too.
/s for the sarcasm impaired
Ban all private adoptions and private adoption agencies. No money should ever be transacted when I child loses its birth parents, and needs a family.
So if the birth mother CHOOSES to not abort her child and CHOOSES to give up her child for adoption, you would rather the baby be put into a State run orphanage, instead of the mother carefully researching and placing her child with a couple that she thinks will be good to her baby?
Would you rather have low paid functionaries, unionized low skilled day care people who are just tending the babies in a government run orphanage, just biding time to take care of the child and who really don't care if the child gets adopted, or have the child placed by an adoption agency or charitable or religious organization?
Regardless of what the adults did or did not do, a child has a fundamental right to her father.
We don't have state orphanages in Massachusetts, they go to foster homes or pre-adoptive homes and it takes six months to finalize adoption. The pre adoptive parents know the reality birth parents/kin have rights.
Again no money is exchanged and birth parents get attorneys.
Yes I pay taxes to protect children's rights.
And these cases don't end up at the Supreme Court...
No orphanages yet. Insty had a couple of interesting links last week about this, 1 to a wyman who told her 2 y.o. about abortion and why it's good.
Then we had the adoption should be banned because it's capitalistic and evvvviiiilllllllllll and the State should raise the child.
Adoption should be about due process, not the state raising the child. Children are not chattel.
Yes, foster homes (where the parents are paid by the state) are ever so much safer and more ethical than private adoptions. No filthy profit being made,there!
Seriously, I don't mean to knock good foster parents---Heaven knows we need more of them, and the job is hard. But it's silly to act as though that arrangement removes money from the equation, or that it's the best solution for pregnant women who don't wish to raise their babies, like Ms. Maldonado. Leave the foster homes available for children who must be removed from their homes due to abuse, neglect and abandonment.
Really, this isn't like that other adoption case---The little girl waa named Leah by Mormon adoptive parents and Teleah by her black biodad. The agency doesn't seem to have done anything wrong. This biodad signed his rights away, and it's his own fault that he didn't read the papers to see who he was signing them to. If he had signed them off to the mother, then the decision to place for adoption would've been hers anyway.
If she didn't want to raise the baby, the father doesn't lose his right to lose raise the child.
The agency tried to pull a fast one.
How did the agency pull a fast one? No one is saying that the.biomom signing her rights away means he can't raise the baby. But his signing his own rights away should mean precisely that. He shouldn't get a do-over and get to remove the baby 2 years after she's placed just because he's Cherokee.
acm, the child was much younger (an infant) when the father stepped in and began to fight for his rights. Plus he was deployed.
Another version of events....
from the NAIWA
"In the final months of pregnancy, the mother cut off all communication with Brown and worked closely with an agency and attorney to adopt the child to a non-Indian couple from South Carolina, the Capobiancos. Brown was not informed of Veronica’s birth on September 15, 2009. Veronica was placed with the Capobiancos three days after her birth in Oklahoma, and they relocated her to South Carolina shortly thereafter.
Four months later, the couple finally served Brown with notice of their intent to adopt Veronica. Immediately, he went to court to request a stay of the adoption until after his deployment (which, because of his military status, is provided for by federal law). He also began the legal steps to establish paternity and gain custody. He was then deployed to Iraq. Because the Capobiancos waited until just days before Brown was deployed, the adoption hearing was not completed until he returned home.
At this hearing, the South Carolina Family Court denied the Capobiancos’ petition to adopt and ordered Veronica’s transfer to her father. The court found that ICWA applied and was not an unconstitutional law, that Brown had acknowledged and established paternity, and that an exception to ICWA called the “Existing Indian Family Exception” (EIFE) was inapplicable to ICWA and therefore the case. Most decisively, it found that Brown had not voluntarily consented to the termination of his parental rights or the adoption, and that Veronica’s placement with him would not result in serious emotional or physical damage."
Most decisively, it found that Brown had not voluntarily consented to the termination of his parental rights or the adoption
Did he or did not sign papers giving up his rights?
Renee,
The guy signed the adoption papers. He changed his mind and used this stupid law as an end run around it. He wouldn't have had to argue that this dumb law applies if he didn't sign away his parental rights.
If the law applies, then the girl should be placed with any indians who want to adopt her, but she should not be placed with the Dad who signed her away already.
This is no trivial matter.
Really do you think there wasn't one couple from OK, who was willing to adopt that they had to go all the way to SC to find a couple?
From the HuffPost
"Through an adoption agency, Birth Mother connected with a couple from South Carolina, Matt and Melanie Capobianco. The Capobiancos spoke to Birth Mother regularly and provided financial assistance throughout the end of her pregnancy."
Money.... Money... Money...
more from the Huff Post
"The Capobiancos argue that Brown did not establish or acknowledge his paternity for purposes of halting an adoption under South Carolina law because he neither lived with the mother or child prior to the adoption nor provides any financial support through the pregnancy. The Capobiancos characterize Brown's efforts to stop the adoption and prove his relationship via DNA testing as simply coming too late in the process to establish parental rights."
So a man loses his parental rights just for not living with the mother and doesn't pay up? He doesn't need to off child support until the child was born, there is no such thing as financial pre-natal support?
Obviously, Renee has never known anyone who's given up their parental rights and found birth parents for their children.
Its all about MONEY!!!!!
I think it all comes down to the qualifier of "inexorably". Certainly, the best interests of a child are not "inexorably" dictated by who his/her biological father and mother are, but "generally" those who sired and birthed a child are those most predisposed to seek that child's best interests. This is not a statement of how things should be, it is just a statement of how things are.
Birches,
I volunteer in foster care.
So you're right, I don't deal with the money aspect of it.
There are proper legal avenues to relinquish parental rights without the exchange of money to adults who are willing to care for the child and also respect both birth parents, there is no need for money or waiting until the bio father is about to be deployed.
The father won in the lower cases, it is the adoptive parents who are appealing this over and over.
If she didn't want to raise the baby, the father doesn't lose his right to lose raise the child.
First of all.....they aren't married. This puts it all in another light.
However....
If she didn't want to raise the baby and decided to kill it instead, where is the father's right to raise his child. Did he lose the right to chose to raise his child? Death and murder trump his right? Is it only the right to KILL your child that is reserved to the mother and not the right to chose to adopt the child to someone else?
Being kind of selective here aren't we.
Renee, that last comment moves the goal posts.
Your first statement said, "Ban all private adoptions and private adoption agencies. No money should ever be transacted when I child loses its birth parents, and needs a family."
You know there are private adoption agencies that don't run as a for profit venture, right? You assume this agency was acting in bad faith (and motivated by greed) because they found a family in South Carolina, not in Oklahoma.
If you happened to read about people like this, would you tell them to find someone else in their own state?
https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/22188295/ourMessage.jsf
Maybe the birth mother liked the idea of the child growing up far from her. She didn't want to accidentally run into the family someday.
You can rail about the money involved, but I think the birth father seems to be more motivated by money than anyone else. He seemed to have no problem giving up his parental rights when he thought that meant he wouldn't have to pay child support to his girlfriend.
DBQ, yep.
Should've gotten married.
I assume the agency was acting in bad faith, when the birth mother was being financially compensated like a surrogate.
"If she didn't want to raise the baby, the father doesn't lose his right to lose raise the child.
First of all.....they aren't married. This puts it all in another light."
What does marriage have to do with his parental rights?
You still have parental rights, with or without marriage. Yes, Paternity is assumed with marriage, but a child doesn't lose her right to her father because he is not married to that mother.
Fathers do not have less rights then mothers.
Supporting can mean a few things,
Letting her live with them?
Paying her rent?
Living stipend?
Paying for prenatal care and food? (kind of like WIC)
Oh Renee, still waiting for some kind of explanation as to why tearing this child away from the parents she's loved, trusted and bonded with is any kind of right thing to do.
Being a former foster parent, and an adoptive mother, I've noticed your anti-adoption comments in the past and wondered about what motivated them.
Renee, where does it say that she was being compensated like a surrogate? "Financially supported" almost certainly means that the Copobiancos, through the agency, were paying the mom's prenatal care bills (since dad wasn't) and possibly paying for things like food or housing. A surrogate is paid with good old filthy lucre money, bioparents may, by law, only have expenses relevant to the pregnancy paid for.
And, honestly, who should've paid for this baby to eat (via her mother's eating) and have medical care? The dad didn't pay. The mom probably couldn't and anyway she didn't want the baby. So who better to pay those bills than the people who are planning to raise that baby.
The bottom line is that this guy signed the adoption papers. I won't fault him for not marrying the mom, because he says he was willing and she wasn't, but he does have to take responsibility for signing away his rights. There was no reason for him to sign away his rights even if he thought that he was signing them over to the mother.
Erica, the baby was torn away from her father. The lower courts agreed.
ACM, you described exactly how surrogates are paid.
This was baby buying.
I'm against human trafficking, sometimes adoption is used in the trade. A child's natural human right to know and be raised by kin, isn't an extreme view.
The mother had two children from another man.
Ask the baby who her father is, Renee.
And what part of him signing his name on the dotted line is difficult for you to understand, Renee? He didn't want the child until it was too late, and trying to undo that is extremely cruel to the child whose well-being matters far more than her sperm donor's regrets.
Surrogates are paid in the form of a check for a lump sum, or several checks building up to an agreed-upon total. That is ILLEGAL for adoptions of this sort. No surrogate in the world considers the prenatal care part of her compensation. Putting groceries in a home, or paying the rent is NOT how surrogates are paid. Since no one except you is accusing the Capobiancos of baby-buying, I'm going to assume that they did not in fact compensate Ms. Mendoza like a surrogate but rather provided food, medical care and housing (again, not payments directly to Ms. Mendoza) for the child they hoped to adopt, which is completely reasonable.
Again, I ask who should.feed, house, and provide medical care for the baby while the mom is carrying her? The father wasn't. He could have. He could've sent a check or money order to his ex or her parents, and that (along with, oh, not signing away his rights) would have shown that he was willing to parent.
I am genuinely curious, Renee---if both parents want to place a baby for adoption (for the sake of argument, let's say they're only-child orphans age 21) who should pay for the baby's delivery and prenatal care? The bioparents are broke, and anyway why should they be stuck with thousands of dollars for a kid they don't want? The adoptive parents paying seems to bother you, but why should they get a freebie when the rest of us pay for our kids to be monitored via ultrasound and all that? Who should pay?
Also, why bring up the mothers older kids? You think she sold this one to buy the others a Wii?
If adoptive parents didn't pay for prenatal care or mother's care, then we'd get the "evil people took my baby and left me with nothing" stories.
I believe adoptive parents (because of spending years trying to conceive and/or waiting for an adoption placement) genuinely WANT to provide to the person who is giving them something they cannot give themselves. It shows appreciation, love and caring.
Children are not there to serve as a cure to one's infertility.
Seriously.
I've seen adoption via the foster care system to non bio adults. Im OK with adoption, its baby selling I'm against.
Baby-selling is illegal. Ms. Mendoza did not get paid. You realize that the cost of adoption is paying lawyers and social workers, and doctors, right? Those costs are still present in foster care, but the state pays them. Do you think all babies whose bioparents would not like to raise them should be first turned over to the state? Money always changes hands when custody is shifted, because lawyers (like you suggested Mr. Brown should've had appointed) OBs and social workers don't work for free, nor should they. As long as the parents aren't outright paid for relinquishing custody, it's not baby buying.
Again, who should pay for the social workers who do homestudies and the lawyers and the babys prenatal care?
I was adopted when I was four years old and moved between several foster families, all nice people, before then. Being taken from your family at that age is not a pleasant experience. This child's happiness and well-being should be paramount. Taking her away from the only one she's ever known, for fine-print legal reasons is cruel. Worrying about the finances involved is missing the point, which should be the affect on the child. I hope she stays with the parents she has known and her biological dad can somehow know her and tell her he cared enough to put her happiness first.
I was adopted when I was four years old and moved between several foster families, all nice people, before then. Being taken from your family at that age is not a pleasant experience. This child's happiness and well-being should be paramount. Taking her away from the only one she's ever known, for fine-print legal reasons is cruel. Worrying about the finances involved is missing the point, which should be the affect on the child. I hope she stays with the parents she has known and her biological dad can somehow know her and tell her he cared enough to put her happiness first.
I am surprised to see so many uninformed and racist comments on this blog. Unless you are Native (as determined by your tribe) you need to brush up on what you are talking about. I am one of the Native Adoptees in the Brief for the Tribe/Father/Child. Here are the media facts: http://www.nicwa.org/BabyVeronica/documents/SCOTUS%20fact%20check_Mar%2011.pdf
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