Somebody's ChildrenLast week, the U.S. State Department announced that it would not return a girl adopted from Guatemala in 2008, even though courts there found that she had been kidnapped. The child’s mother, working with Fundación Sobreviventes (a feminist group that works on femicide, child sexual abuse, and children lost to adoptions) has said that she […]
Before I name all the reasons I think same-sex marriage is not necessarily as progressive as some people think it is, let me begin by confessing something that even some of my friends don’t know: I am gay-married (it’s the married, not the gay part, that I’m partially in the closet about). So I am […]
I recently published a book called Somebody’s Children: The Politics of Transracial and Transnational Adoption. I chose that title for a nummber of reasons, but the main one was that I wanted to think about the mothers that often get discounted. When scholars and journalists and policy analysts write about adoption, they almost always ignore […]
The Republicans currently in power seem determined to end the availability of basic sexual and reproductive health services. Last week, the Senate, by the thinnest of margins, passed a bill now on the president’s desk that would allow states to defund Planned Parenthood. In many communities, Planned Parenthood the only provider of abortion (for […]
Policing Northampton A month ago, a group of parents, school board members, and teachers in Northampton, Massachusetts asked for a meeting with the superintendent and the police chief about a “high-five” program that had been awkwardly rolled out. In January, without any clear explanation and only a little notice, a group of armed police […]
by Liz Oglesby Here’s why Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson is exactly wrong on the Central American migrant issue. Two questions are relevant here: why are Central Americans crossing the border, and why are kids coming without adult relatives? To the first question there are numerous answers, some structural and some immediate. Poverty, inequitable […]
What are the conditions under which a biological parent should lose rights to their children, and how much should marriage matter in determining that? Does it make a difference whether the child is eligible for enrollment in Native nation or not? And, finally, should the court consider the best interests of the child in determining […]
by Laura Briggs (reposted from guest blog for NCROW) The “Baby Veronica” case (Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl) currently before the Supreme Court is many things—a case that could undermine a great deal of federal Indian law by attacking the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA); a story about the stupid, mean things a couple will […]
The Russian adoption ban and the US Magnitsky Act offer all the absurdity of the Cold War, with less geopolitically at stake. Both sides are claiming the other is cruel to children, and neither is making much sense. There are real issues to talk about related to the care of children, but the conversation in […]
One of the most remarkable books I’ve read this year is Missing Mila, Finding Family by Margaret Ward, which leaves me with a strong sense that the adoption debate could be—should be—different. It is also a profoundly particular—and hence human—story about how two families, one Salvadoran, one in the U.S., work through their understanding of […]
Laura Briggs