Source: U.S. Congressman Robert Pittenger (NC-09) Yesterday President Barack Obama signed into law the Kilah Davenport Child Protection Act of 2013. The law is named for Kilah Davenport, a four-year-old girl whose stepfather physically assaulted her in 2012 and caused damage to 90 percent of her brain. She died just last month as a result [...]
Source: NY Times/Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press Earlier this week I read several articles (example) about Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's executive order to dismantle the state's Child Protective Services (CPS) agency under the Department of Economic Security and create a Cabinet-level division called the Division of Child Safety and Family Services that would take over CPS [...]
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision on Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, otherwise known as the Baby Veronica case. The U.S. Supreme Court had been asked to decide what constitutes a "parent" under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), specifically if the definition includes an unwed biological father who had not complied [...]
This is the second part in a three-part series I will be writing on Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, or "The Baby Veronica Case." Part 1 presented the actual case that was heard before the Supreme Court as well as the responses of the Supreme Court Justices. Part 2 reviews the history leading up to [...]
This is the first part in a three-part series I will be writing on Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, or "The Baby Veronica Case." Part 1 presents the actual case that was heard before the Supreme Court as well as the responses of the Supreme Court Justices. Part 2 will review the history leading up [...]
This guest post was written by Brittany Kellerman. [Photo: Mark Holm for the NYT] The New York Times published an article on January 26, 2013 entitled "Focus on Preserving Heritage Can Limit Foster Care for Indians" by Dan Frosch. The article discusses the impact that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 continues to [...]
[Photo of Betty with her biological father and cousin, courtesy of Loes Zuidervaart for Voice of America] An unprecedented case involving the revocation of an adoption in Ethiopia was won by a 14-year old who wanted to have the adoption dissolved. Betty Lub was adopted by a Dutch family when she was seven years old. [...]
Two weeks ago the City Limits newspaper published a series by Rachel Blustain on what she termed, "broken adoptions" - that is, adoption dissolutions. Photo by Marc Fader for City Limits. The numbers of how many adoptions fail is a tough statistic to obtain, in part because many adoption dissolutions occur years afer an adoption [...]
