Supreme Court conflicted about what law dictates for Baby Veronica (Indian Child Welfare Act case)

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

Supreme Court justices appeared deeply conflicted Tuesday as they considered the fate of Baby Veronica, whose adoptive parents were ordered to return her to the Native American father who once gave up rights to his biological daughter but now has embraced parenthood.

The hour-long oral arguments featured an emotional appeal from the attorney for Matt and Melanie Capobianco, the adoptive couple, and a lament from Justice Anthony M. Kennedy about the difficulty the case presented.

“These considerations are why domestic relations pose the hardest problems for judges,” he said. “If we could appoint King Solomon, who was the first domestic relations judge, as special master, we could do it. But we can’t do it.”

The case turns on the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which Congress passed in 1978 to help preserve Native American families by erecting high hurdles for ending the parental rights of Indian parents and discourage adoptions outside tribes.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-conflicted-about-what-law-dictates-for-baby-veronica/2013/04/16/ba1156a6-a6b6-11e2-8302-3c7e0ea97057_singlePage.html

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When this case was first announced I ran into this Thomas Sowell column (Sowell is a libertarian) where he argued: "The welfare of a flesh-and-blood human being should trump theories about cultures — especially in the case of a two-year-old child, who has been torn away from the only parents she has ever known, and treated as a pawn in a legalistic game." Wikipedia summarizes the ICWA: "ICWA gives tribal governments a strong voice concerning child custody proceedings that involve Indian children, by allocating tribes exclusive jurisdiction over the case when the child resides on, or is domiciled on, the reservation, or when the child is a ward of the tribe; and concurrent, but presumptive, jurisdiction over non-reservation Native Americans’ foster care placement proceedings."

This case is called Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl...really.

[delrem]

1. IMO if he gave up his rights w.r.t. his own child, that should be final. nt

[Tumbulu]

2. What a creep of a guy- not there for the mom

Allowing everyone else to support the mom and baby and then show up with a touch of native blood and claim this child as though she is chattel?

I hope Judge Roberts reads him the riot act. Shame on this jerk!

[Nevernose]

3. Interestingly, "native blood" and genetics are irrelevant in this case

It's about tribal membership, which is not necessarily about parentage or genetics. And while I tend to agree with you about deadbeat parents, this particular case is complicated by the fact that over the twentieth century, thousand of American Indian children were forced into adoption (hence the passing of the 1978 law).

[Tumbulu]

6. I certainly understand why that law was passed

but it has little bearing on this case. Sorry, a dad who refused to even help the mom while pregnant claiming the child as his after everyone else did all this work of producing the baby, and raising her to be a toddler.... selfish to the power of 10.

[elleng]

4. Rough case that,

from what I heard about the argument today, the Court would rather not have to deal with; they're rarely involved in such 'family' type cases, which are usually resolved in State courts.

[Omaha Steve]

5. My first born was adopted out (closed) in 1973

Last edited Wed Apr 17, 2013, 07:29 PM - Edit history (2)

I'm 25% Cherokee. She is now 40 years old. Her birth mom and I couldn't have hand picked better parents for her. She came looking for us 5 years ago. Wonderful reunion. Return the child to her adoptive parents.

K&R!

OS

[Tumbulu]

7. Thanks for sharing how responsible people act

Parenting is huge- to take a child away from it's adoptive parents in so out of line horrendous.

[Sivafae]

8. I have two points.

First point is what "deadbeat" dad come back two years after giving up parental rights to claim his child.

The second point I have is this, ignoring the history of White people taking Native people from their families to "re-educate" them; the native peoples of this land still have sovereignty and are nations of their own creation. We, in this country, need to get permission from those people to take a child that is part of their nation, whether they were born on the rez or not. That seems to go without saying, but needs to be said because most people do not see the sovereignty of the native nations as legitimate or even acknowledge that they exist.

Granted my arguments are ignoring vital facts to this case that are not well known.

[rebecca_herman]

9. The mother isn't Indian

The mother is not Indian and that complicates it for me. The child is not just Indian, she is mixed - and I am not referring to the father's blood quantum being low, but the fact that one of her parents (the mom) is definitely not Indian - so she'd be mixed race even if her father had only Cherokee heritage and nothing else. While the whole boarding school and forced adoption era was atrocious, I think the idea that children with 1 Indian, 1 non Indian parent should always belong to the Tribe to make up for that is also pretty atrocious. It seems to completely demean the non Indian parent and whatever heritage the child got from him or her. In this case the mother was Hispanic, but I see no one protesting the adoption because she wouldn't learn about her Hispanic roots, or lamenting that her father may not teach her about that either. That Indians were mistreated horribly in the past shouldn't mean that when a child is of mixed heritage, only the Indian matters - that is demeaning to both the child and the non Indian parent.