Adoption in New Zealand

The Press has an article today which looks at adoption in New Zealand...

It is the curious thought that strikes most adolescents at some point. What a fluke to find myself born and alive.

Mum and dad. A different day, a different mood and, well, a different tale. You have to be grateful for the haphazard chain of events that means you even exist in this world.

Hannah Duckmanton, 22, a newly trained primary school teacher, says she feels it more than most. Not hard when by another fluke you end up living streets from the clinic where you were once so nearly aborted.

The story goes that her biological mother had a final meeting with her biological father in Hamilton, then stopped off at Taradale in Napier on the drive back to Blenheim. "She had an abortion booked, went to the appointment and everything, and just found she couldn't do it," Ms Duckmanton says.

But what were the other options? Her mother was already struggling with bringing up one child on her own. Adoption? What mother could bring herself to give her baby away? Abortion remained the obvious choice. However, recent law changes meant New Zealand was pioneering a new way of adopting open rather than closed. Adoption with parental contact.

A Christchurch couple came forward who frankly "would have agreed to anything" to have a child. So on a frosty morning in July 1986, Ms Duckmanton dropped into the world the birth took just 15 minutes and became a test case for the open-adoption philosophy.

Great article. It goes on to explain how difficult adoption is in New Zealand, and mentions that there were only 77 children adopted out to non-family members in 2008.Trevor knows more about this than I do, so I'm going to have to talk to him about it and write more on adoption in New Zealand.

Baby dumping 'sign of the times'

(parody, click here for the original article on www.stuff.co.nz)

PICK ME: These five babies were saved from drowning after being stuffed inside a sack and dumped at Riverton Rocks yesterday.

The attempted drowning of five babies that were stuffed inside a sack and dumped at Riverton Rocks is a sign of the times, Adoption Option chairperson says.
Adoption Option chairperson, Sue Kingham said a woman heard the babies crying inside the sack about midday yesterday and rescued them before the tide could take the sack away.
Though disgusted with the perpetrator's actions, she said it was a sign of the times.
"With the price of petrol and power, people just haven't got the money to afford to feed these babies, but that's no excuse. If they don't want to raise children they should not get pregnant."
She said the five babies, which were about six months old, were being cared for by a local family and would be looked after and checked by a doctor before being put up for adoption in several weeks.
There were about 25 babies at the Invercargill orphanage, but not enough families for them to go to, she said.

(parody, click here for the original article on www.stuff.co.nz)

Brendand Malone commented on the original article,

"And the same day that a major NZ news outlet was reporting about the attempted drowning of seven puppies, more than 50 New Zealand babies were killed in abortion clinics around the country. Can I be so bold as to suggest that the fact that these 50 deaths didn’t even rate a mention says a lot more about New Zealand’s real problems than seven puppies in a sack does?" - Semper Vita

Arkansas: Homosexual Adoption on the Way Out

The Family Council Action Committee of Arkansas have been very busy, collecting signatures on a petition proposing the following amendment to the laws of the State,

An Act Providing That An Individual Who Is Cohabiting Outside Of A Valid Marriage May Not Adopt Or Be A Foster Parent Of A Child Less Than Eighteen Years Old

They've only had to collect 61,974 valid signatures, however the rules governing the collection of signatures on a petition are much more stringent than they are here in New Zealand. World Net Daily reports,

"A ban against unmarried couples becoming foster or adoptive parents is scheduled to appear on Arkansas ballots this fall – and some say the measure is geared at denying homosexuals the chance to raise children. The Arkansas Family Council Action Committee submitted 85,389 of the required 61,974 voter's signatures to place the proposal on the Nov. 4 ballot, according to Associated Press reports. Family Council President Jerry Cox said getting the proposed act on the ballot is a significant step for families.
"Arkansas needs to affirm the importance of married mothers and fathers," he said. "We need to publicly affirm the gold standard of rearing children whenever we can. The state standard should be as close to that gold standard of married mom and dad homes as possible."
In 2006, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled against a state policy preventing "gays" from becoming foster parents. The Family Council reacted by acquiring enough signatures to place the initiative on the Arkansas ballot...."
Click here for the rest of the article

This is a fabulous improvement on Arkansas law.  The last thing a foster child needs is to be brought up in a home where he has two dads or two mums.  The Family Council Action Committee lists three reasons why they believe that foster care children should not be placed in homes with individuals who cohabit with a sexual partner.  The two key points are in bold.

1. Children in the Arkansas foster care system and children in need of adoption are among the most vulnerable in our society. They desperately need to live in a home with a mother and a father who are married to one another. Five thousand years of human history, common sense, every major world religion, and scores of scientific studies agree that the best place for a child is in a home with a married mother and father. If the State of Arkansas is going to create families through adoption or foster care, we owe it to the children to create the best ones possible.
2. The Arkansas Adoption Act will increase the number of homes for adoptive and foster care children. Adoptive and foster care children need good homes and the best way to find those homes is to make people aware of the need. Any shortage of foster homes or any shortage of families willing to adopt can be attributed to the fact that married couples are not meeting this need. As the Arkansas Adoption Act is discussed and debated it will highlight the need for more homes and result in an increase in the number of good homes for Arkansas’ most vulnerable children.
3. This act seeks to blunt a homosexual agenda that has used the shortage of adoptive or foster care homes in other states as a means of advancing their social agenda. Laws have been passed in eight states that support the homosexual agenda when it comes to the adoption or foster care of children. Arkansas has no law to prevent homosexual adoption. Homosexuals are adopting children and this will continue until a law is passed. A lawsuit filed by the ACLU and supported by homosexuals resulted in an Arkansas judge overturning state regulations banning homosexuals from serving as foster parents. The Arkansas Adoption Act addresses this issue as well.

Congratulations to the hard-working canvassers from Arkansas who have put so much time and effort into getting this proposed piece of law onto the ballot for November this year.  Another point of interest, "in 2004 the Family Council successfully passed an Arkansas constitutional amendment banning gay marriage". (WND)

An Australian Crime

I hold my head in my hands.

This is absolutely disgusting, a 12-year-old girl was left without food or water to die in the backyard of her foster home, delirious with pain and unable to move.  Give me a break, she was just 12 years old!  Below is an excerpt from the article (30 July) at www.theaustralian.news.com.au,

"Mr Coates said Ms Reynolds was a "stubborn" woman who insisted the child had sustained a sports injury which would improve with exercise. When the girl refused, Ms Reynolds would "smack her leg with a stick".

"(The child) was unable to stand unassisted and when she was forced to she would just fall to the ground," Mr Coates said during opening submissions.

"When assistance was not forthcoming to help her to the toilet she would urinate and defecate in her clothes where she lay."

Mr Coates said social workers who visited the three-bedroom Palmerston home - which housed 17 people - the day before the death found the child lying on the kitchen floor crying.

When she was told to have a shower she struggled to walk and had to use the walls for support. Mr Coates said the jury would also hear evidence that, hours before her death, the girl was "punished" for soiling her clothes and taken out to the backyard.

"The children were told they were not allowed to help her get food or drink," he said.

"You will hear evidence from children who were out playing in the yard that later in the day (the girl) began to talk about fairies and witches and she said a limousine was coming to pick her up ... (The girl) said yeh, I can see the light now, and she just stopped breathing."

From what I understand of the story, there were fifteen foster children housed in a home, looked after by two sisters (Toni Melville, 43, and Denise Reynolds, 42) in Palmerston, Australia.  It is painfully obvious that they were incompetent as carers, and this tragic situation should have been intercepted much earlier.  The frustrating irony is the cases where good foster parents have been refused foster-children due to their stance on homosexuality, child-discipline or the like.

This case brings to mind the 2007 film, An American Crime an eerie portrayal of exactly this kind of abuse.  And the recent case of the murdered Kahui twins, where at the end of lengthy court proceedings and public outcry, no-one was ever charged for the death of these poor little boys who never got a chance.  I thought the Anti-Smacking Law was supposed to sort out New Zealand's child abuse problem...

"Ms Bradford [sponsor of Anti-Smacking Law] says parents need to accept that it is no longer legal to hit children. She remains confident her anti-smacking laws will change what she describes as a culture of violence." - Newstalk ZB, 15/01/08

However, Bradford said back in 2007,

“The epidemic of child abuse and child violence in this country continues – sadly. My bill was never intended to solve that problem.” - National Radio - 21 Dec 07

Instead of the growing international trend to criminalise good and loving parents for giving their child a smack, let us rather crack down on the real child abusers.  While governments persist with their totalitarian, socialist, nanny-state agenda, the number of child abuse cases can only increase as increasingly, good parents are pushed out, setting the scene for horrific new cases of child-abuse and neglect to mar the front page of your morning paper.

(hat tip, NZ Conservative)