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Clint and Heather -
I don't want to devastate you further. I wish I could assure you that your baby will be okay, but I can't. The Leech Lake Reservation is so bad, that even my husband, a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe from Leech Lake, took our kids far from it and wrote in his will that he did NOT want the grand kids that he had legal custody of (through ICWA, of course) to go back there when he died.
He passed away four years ago and how I managed to keep his grand kids is still a mystery to us. The Lord definitely had his hand in it. We imagine that the Mpls. Star and Tribe series, "The Lost Youth Of Leech Lake," which came out just two months before he passed away also brought such bad publicity to the tribe that they simply decided not to fight with us.
I strongly urge you to continue to fight for this little boy. It will be hard enough for him having to deal with the affects of having been born with substances in his system. But being in Cass Lake on top of it....
You said on the news that you want to fight to make sure this doesn't happen to any more children. We are also trying to fight for the children. I have a grandson now who, at 1/4 blood quantum, is enrollable. If anything should happen to his parents, I WILL fight the tribe tooth and nail and I WILL defy the law if it came down to it.
We would like to work with you in your battle.
2 comments:
A common test question of morality often goes like this:
If a store clerk gave you too much change (say change of $20 instead of $10) would you keep or let him know his error and return it?
Another asks: if you found a paper bag with a large sum of cash in a bus or wherever, would you report it to the police or keep it?
In both of these cases what we want is pitted against what is right, moral, ethical and legal....and also what would or would not hurt another human being.
Would you knowingly be the recipient of other stolen merchandise?
Would you advocate keeping a child who had been kidnapped?
If one can feel sympathy and compassion for a woman who held a child in her arms for 30 days - where is the same compassion for the one who carried the child for nine months?
Have you seen the video at:
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S712763.shtml?cat=206
Did you see the amazing resemblance between mother and child? Are you aware of the lies about the drug tests? Are you aware the child has a mother, a father and full siblings?
How could you in good conscience support keeping a child form his family who loves him, wants him and is able to provide a safe home for him -- simply because someone else became attached to him?
What if a day care worker becomes attached to YOUR child?
No adoption is final until it is final. All adopters have to accept that uncertainty - it is like being pregnant and hoping the child is born alive and healthy - but having to except it when it is not so. Some babies die at birth - or within days or months. People cope with such losses. It is what is it. This is a loss of a stranger to a child she held for 30 days - over an entire family being permanently destroyed.
Do you think if the adopter kept this child he'd thank her someday for keeping him from his whole family who wanted him???
Isn't adoption supposed to provide care for children who NEED it - not snatch kids because of desire to have one??
You need to do a great deal of rethinking and re-prioritizing. Adoption is not about snatching children!
We need to put FAMILIES FIRST! Whatever they are Native American or whatever heritage they are.
Mirah Riben, Vice President Communications, Origins-USA.org, and author, The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry
You are full of crap and don't know what you are talking about.
Again, I am the mother of five children enrolled at the Leech Lake reservation, and have been the legal custodian of four additional Leech Lake kids. Do you have any first hand knowledge what it is like for children on Leech Lake? I do.
Did you know the child isn't being returned to the mother, but is going into foster care? Do you have any idea what the quaility of "relative custody" is on the Leech Lake Reservation? I do. I have watched dozens of relatives suffer over the last 30 years.
And where do you get this junk about the baby being "kidnapped?" The mother signed the child over!
Again, my husband, a Leech Laker with 100% heritage, who was raised in Leech Lake, has a huge extended family there, and who passed away four years ago, made it very clear in discussions he had with Congressmen in DC, as well as speaking at the National Press Club three weeks before he died, that there is NO WAY he wanted our children raised in Leech Lake. What makes YOU think you know more on this subject than HE did?
Please, people that don't have a clue should just keep their mouths shut and stay out of it.
The ICWA law has done much harm to many, many children. Read ICWA family stroies at http://www.caicw.org/familystories.html
Also look back to the series done in the Mpls. Star and Tribune, April 2004, titled "the Lost Youth of Leech Lake."
Sheesh. Bozos.
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