Amidst the conflicting claims regarding the actions and
character of the parties contending for custody of almost-four year old Veronica,
it is the undisputed facts that seem most significant. Dusten Brown is Veronica’s father. Dusten Brown has fought for Veronica from the
time, when she was four months old, that he became aware that Veronica’s mother
wanted to place her for adoption. (There
is much dispute about what happened during the pregnancy and in those first
four months, but no substantive dispute about what happened since then.) The adoptive parents had the opportunity to
let go then, at four months, with comparatively little trauma to Veronica, but
instead fought in court against Dusten, delaying the handover of Vernonica to her father until
she was 27 months old. It is further
undisputed that Dusten, along with his parents and wife, form a loving and
successful family environment for Veronica, and that she has thrived with them
for the last 19 months.
Whatever
the law may say, ethically the result is clear:
Veronica should remain with her family.
This is true not only because it
would be traumatic for her to be moved, again, although that is certainly
relevant. More fundamentally, Veronica
should remain with her father and family because adoption should never be used
to take children away from a loving family.
Remember
when adoption was supposed to about providing families for “orphan” children,
or for children from abuse or neglect so severe that, after reasonable efforts
to rehabilitate and preserve the family, there was no way to make the family a
reasonably safe place? Unfortunately,
adoption all too often has become about the desire of adoptive parents to
parent, rather than the needs of a child for a home. There is nothing wrong with wanting to
parent a child, but everything wrong with taking someone else’s child to do
so.
The
Veronica case is distinctive because of the issues surrounding tribal
citizenship and the Indian Child Welfare Act, but the basic scenario of
adoptive families fighting to wrest or retain children from original family
members is all too commonplace. It is
very unfortunate that the law too often is structured to side with adoptive
parents in these settings. However, it
is even more unfortunate that adoptive parents who have a child for a few days,
weeks, or months before becoming aware that the original mother or father want
the child, feel justified in fighting to keep what they deem as “their”
child.
In this
case, it is particularly unjust that the adoptive couple have sought, and the
South Carolina courts granted, an order taking Veronica from her father and
family, without even a best interests hearing.
It is ironic that the adoptive parents make the argument that the
transfer should be done quickly for Veronica’s sake, when in terms of
Veronica’s best interests there is no indication that the transfer should take
place at all. Indeed, if the adoptive couple had wanted to
minimize Veronica’s trauma they would have returned the child to her father as
soon as he sought it, when she was four months old. This
case has become a revealing illustration of the determination of adoptive
parents to obtain, take, and keep children, regardless of whether those
children indeed have a parent and family who love and want them.
Others
have noted a certain religious backdrop to this case, related primarily to
organizations supporting the adoptive parents or involved in the adoption who
claim a religious purpose or affiliation---specifically Christian. Without claiming to evaluate those ties, my
belief as a Christian is that, regardless of what the courts decide as a matter
of legal right, the adoptive parents should allow Veronica to remain with her
father and family. Perhaps they can
work out some access to Veronica, perhaps not:
but they should honor Veronica’s family relationships. Indeed, one wonders whether the determination
to wrest Veronica from her father could be viewed as a kind of coveting of
another’s child, and if successful as a kind of child stealing: violations of the 8th and 10th
commandments.
The
Christian community—and especially the Christian adoption movement-- should see
the Veronica case as an opportunity to establish several fundamental
principles, without which adoption becomes exploitation and sin. Adoption should not be used as a means to
take children from their original family when that family loves and wants them,
and is able to provide a positive and safe environment for them. In regard to the tribal aspects of the case,
it needs to be made clear that the Christian community has no desire to use the
power of the state or law to wrest children away from their original
communities for the sake of “Christianizing” them or separating them from their
birth cultures, as was done so often in the past. This
case is an opportunity for the Christian adoption movement to clearly repudiate
the shameful history of the use of adoption and other means to accomplish a
kind of cultural genocide. This case is also an opportunity to make clear
that there is a strong priority for children to be raised, whenever possible,
by their biological parents, and that therefore biological parents have
priority over prospective adoptive parents.
Once these priorities are established, then adoption can be reserved for
those instances when it is truly needed for the benefit of children.
In
regard to the fate of Veronica herself, of course, I lack access to all of the
facts. I know nothing except what is in
the public record. I can only hope and
pray that the courts and all of the parties will ultimately be guided to a just
result that will truly be in Veronica’s best interests. It has been immensely saddening, however, to
see how willing so much of the media has been to ratify as normal the sense of
entitlement to Veronica that the adoptive parents are expressing, and so
unwilling to consider the claims of a father who has for so long sought nothing
more than to raise his own daughter.
There is something amiss in our cultural concept of adoption that is begging
to be corrected.
David Smolin