Monday, October 14, 2013

Parental Rights and What's in the Best Interest of the Child

In 2009, a couple from South Carolina sought to adopt a child whose father is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, and whose mother was Hispanic. The girl, Veronica, 4, had been living in the Cherokee Nation with her father since she was 2. Before that, she lived with the adoptive couple. The biological father contested the adoption on the grounds that he was not properly notified. He won his case, and it received extensive coverage in the national media.

In October 2012, the adoptive couple petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review the case. SCOTUS issued a 5-4 decision, sending the case back to the state court of South Carolina for further hearings. In July 2013, the South Carolina court finalized the adoption of the child to the adoptive couple, but shortly thereafter the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the girl should not immediately be transferred from the custody of her biological father to the South Carolina couple who adopted her. 

This stay was lifted on September 23, and the child was turned over to her adoptive parents the same day, though further appeals by her biological father are said to be likely.


What do you think of this verdict? Was it in the best interest of the child?

1 comment:

Samantha Franklin said...

The courts found that Veronica should be raised by her father, who said he never consented or wanted an adoption. The court system then failed Veronica by requiring her to be transferred unnecessarily at the age of 4 to a couple outside her own family. She was not "adopted at birth" as the media and adoption industry proclaim. The adoption was contested and if her best interest had been upheld from the beginning, she would never have been a pawn in a system of supply and demand.