December 02, 2013

Adoption News Round-up

Lots of dynamic stories about adoption in the web this week — here’s a round-up:

An Italian woman who experienced a bipolar episode while pregnant and in Britain was forced to undergo a cesarean section by the British courts, who then took her child and place the baby with social services without contacting any authorities from the woman’s home country or getting the woman’s permission. 15 months later the woman is desperate to get her daughter back, even though she is close to being adopted by a British couple. Patient pressure groups in Britain are outraged, and many are calling social workers “out of control.”

Have you heard about the new adoption film, Philomena, starring Judi Dench and Seth Coogan — the true story of a teenage girl who was forced by the Catholic Church to place her child for adoption when she became pregnant out of wedlock? The story gets an even greater twist when her son is found, and it comes out that he was a closeted homosexual in the highest ranks of the Republican party. The movie illuminates a tragic time in history when many children were taken from their parents, unwillingly, and sold into adoption. This is a powerful and important movie for all involved in the adoption world to see.

And here, the New York Times interviews the real Philomena Lee about her experience losing her child and the life that ensued, including the constant contact she maintained with the convent in which her son was taken away, just in case Anthony ever showed up looking for her.

The New York Times received many responses to Nicholas Kristof’s article “When Children are Traded,” about the horrific practice of re-homing. He contests that America has inadequate child services, insisting that therefore, these internationally-adopted children are being neglected. What do you think?

Well…it’s official: Italians are now the only foreigners allowed to adopt Russian children.

We love when adoption is represented in our home state! This couple from Van Meter, Iowa just adopted their 10th child. “I don’t know that we have done anything overly special, other than allow them to become the people that they want to become and, if you allow children to do that, then they will,” [Adoptive father, Levi Hancock] said. “They’ll accomplish what people tell them that they can accomplish.”