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When love matters more than blood
Jeff Jacoby
January 3, 2005
From the moment my wife and I decided to adopt a child, we planned on
an international adoption. Adopting a child from another country is
more complicated, time-consuming, and expensive than a domestic
adoption, but we didn't want to take any chances. We had heard too many
heart-wrenching stories of adoptive parents forcibly separated from
their child years later -- not because they had done anything wrong,
but because the biological mother had changed her mind, or the
biological father had decided to assert his paternity, and an American
court had elevated the claim of blood over the claim of love.
It had happened in Illinois, when 4-year-old Danny Warburton ("Baby
Richard") was pried, sobbing, from the only parents he had ever known
and given to the stranger who happened to have sired him. It had
happened in Michigan, when a screaming and terrified Jessica DeBoer was
taken from her mother and father and sent to a couple in Iowa because
judges had concluded that the biology involved in conceiving Jessica
counted for more than the love and sacrifice involved in raising her.
We wanted to be sure such a horror-show never happened to our adopted
child.
The way it is happening now in Florida to Evan Parker Scott.
Evan was born in Jacksonville to Amanda Hopkins on May 5, 2001. On
hand to witness the blessed event were Dawn and Gene Scott, the
childless couple with whom Hopkins had agreed to place the baby for
adoption. Two days later, the Scotts took Evan home. They have been his
adoring parents ever since.
"We never really knew just how . . . blown away we would be by the
love we feel for this very special child," Dawn Scott would later
write. "We can't even describe it in words. . . . Evan completes us."
Now that completed little family is being torn apart. By order of
Florida Circuit Judge Waddell Wallace III, Evan is about to undergo
something most small children experience only in nightmares -- he is
going to be sent away from his parents forever.
At 3, of course, Evan is too young to be aware of the circumstances
swirling around him. He has no idea that his biological mother was an
unmarried 21-year-old who had moved to Jacksonville to get away from
Stephen White Jr., the unstable 33-year-old who had impregnated her. He
doesn't know that White "has a history of drug use and violent
behavior," as Judge Wallace wrote in his Dec. 16 order, or that he was
convicted of criminal assault for beating Amanda early in her pregnancy
-- a beating severe enough to send her to the hospital.
Evan has no idea that Hopkins willingly placed him with the Scotts
for adoption because she knew they could give him a better life than
she could. He doesn't understand that White was notified of the pending
adoption before he was born, but waited months before taking the legal
steps necessary to establish his paternity. He has no sense of the
tortuous legal odyssey that ensued when a judge nonetheless allowed
White to block the Scotts' adoption and demand custody for himself --
an odyssey that has involved nine judges, endless trips to court, and a
blizzard of motions, cross-motions, affidavits, and orders.
All this little boy really knows is that Dawn and Gene Scott are his
Mama and his Daddy and always have been. They are his rock -- the one
true thing he has always known. Now Evan's rock is about to crumble.
The Scotts have been terminated as his guardians and removed as
parties to the case. Hopkins, who freely placed Evan with them for
adoption but now says she wants him back, is to have primary custody.
The biological father -- who never married the mother or supported her
when she was pregnant, and who has a criminal history and what even the
court calls "a temper that he has difficulty controlling" -- is to
enjoy liberal visitation rights. Soon, probably this week, Evan is to
begin the transition from his home in Florida to the Illinois naval
base where his birth mother now lives. Once he is in her custody, the
Scotts don't know if they will ever see him again.
This is what comes of attaching more importance to DNA than to years
of devoted parenting. Only a legal system that believes ties of blood
are the truest expression of parenthood could order a boy stripped of
the parents who have raised and cherished him from birth. The universe
as Evan Parker Scott has known it is about to implode. He is going to
believe that his Mama and Daddy sent him away. What did he ever do to
deserve that? And who among us would wish the confusion and heartbreak
he will suffer on any child we loved?
=A92004 Boston Globe
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When love matters more than blood
Jeff Jacoby
January 3, 2005
From the moment my wife and I decided to adopt a child, we planned on
an international adoption. Adopting a child from another country is
more complicated, time-consuming, and expensive than a domestic
adoption, but we didn't want to take any chances. We had heard too many
heart-wrenching stories of adoptive parents forcibly separated from
their child years later -- not because they had done anything wrong,
but because the biological mother had changed her mind, or the
biological father had decided to assert his paternity, and an American
court had elevated the claim of blood over the claim of love.
It had happened in Illinois, when 4-year-old Danny Warburton ("Baby
Richard") was pried, sobbing, from the only parents he had ever known
and given to the stranger who happened to have sired him. It had
happened in Michigan, when a screaming and terrified Jessica DeBoer was
taken from her mother and father and sent to a couple in Iowa because
judges had concluded that the biology involved in conceiving Jessica
counted for more than the love and sacrifice involved in raising her.
We wanted to be sure such a horror-show never happened to our adopted
child.
The way it is happening now in Florida to Evan Parker Scott.
Evan was born in Jacksonville to Amanda Hopkins on May 5, 2001. On
hand to witness the blessed event were Dawn and Gene Scott, the
childless couple with whom Hopkins had agreed to place the baby for
adoption. Two days later, the Scotts took Evan home. They have been his
adoring parents ever since.
"We never really knew just how . . . blown away we would be by the
love we feel for this very special child," Dawn Scott would later
write. "We can't even describe it in words. . . . Evan completes us."
Now that completed little family is being torn apart. By order of
Florida Circuit Judge Waddell Wallace III, Evan is about to undergo
something most small children experience only in nightmares -- he is
going to be sent away from his parents forever.
At 3, of course, Evan is too young to be aware of the circumstances
swirling around him. He has no idea that his biological mother was an
unmarried 21-year-old who had moved to Jacksonville to get away from
Stephen White Jr., the unstable 33-year-old who had impregnated her. He
doesn't know that White "has a history of drug use and violent
behavior," as Judge Wallace wrote in his Dec. 16 order, or that he was
convicted of criminal assault for beating Amanda early in her pregnancy
-- a beating severe enough to send her to the hospital.
Evan has no idea that Hopkins willingly placed him with the Scotts
for adoption because she knew they could give him a better life than
she could. He doesn't understand that White was notified of the pending
adoption before he was born, but waited months before taking the legal
steps necessary to establish his paternity. He has no sense of the
tortuous legal odyssey that ensued when a judge nonetheless allowed
White to block the Scotts' adoption and demand custody for himself --
an odyssey that has involved nine judges, endless trips to court, and a
blizzard of motions, cross-motions, affidavits, and orders.
All this little boy really knows is that Dawn and Gene Scott are his
Mama and his Daddy and always have been. They are his rock -- the one
true thing he has always known. Now Evan's rock is about to crumble.
The Scotts have been terminated as his guardians and removed as
parties to the case. Hopkins, who freely placed Evan with them for
adoption but now says she wants him back, is to have primary custody.
The biological father -- who never married the mother or supported her
when she was pregnant, and who has a criminal history and what even the
court calls "a temper that he has difficulty controlling" -- is to
enjoy liberal visitation rights. Soon, probably this week, Evan is to
begin the transition from his home in Florida to the Illinois naval
base where his birth mother now lives. Once he is in her custody, the
Scotts don't know if they will ever see him again.
This is what comes of attaching more importance to DNA than to years
of devoted parenting. Only a legal system that believes ties of blood
are the truest expression of parenthood could order a boy stripped of
the parents who have raised and cherished him from birth. The universe
as Evan Parker Scott has known it is about to implode. He is going to
believe that his Mama and Daddy sent him away. What did he ever do to
deserve that? And who among us would wish the confusion and heartbreak
he will suffer on any child we loved?
2004 Boston Globe
That truely sucks.
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Based solely on the words of the article, it would appear that there
was no final adoption, and so the adoptive parents have no cause for
complaint, however disappointed they are.
Many people in that situation have absconded, fled the country. But
that has its own risks.
International adoption is not politically correct these days, and there
are increasing obstacles. One way around them is to reside in the
adoption country for some years...
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