China Checks Out Charges Babies Taken From Home - WSJ.com

China Checks Out Charges Babies Taken From Home - WSJ.com
The thought that babies were taken from their Chinese parents because they could not pay the fine sickens me. Yet,if we look back in our own, American history, how different is this from what happened in the U.S. in earlier decades when we told unwed mothers, you can't be a good mom right now, "But don't worry we'll find your baby a home with a mom and a dad."

Adoption is wonderful for adoptive parents like me - yet there is always hurt...even in the ideal situation when a parent surrenders a child willingly, the first parent is still a parent in his/her heart and mind, and the child as I've witnessed with Amelia, no matter how loved, will always ache from the absence of the first parents.

In a perfect world, there would be NO need for any child to leave his/her first family. Society would find a way to support families so that they could remain intact. I realize there will always be extremes when a child wouldn't be safe in a first family, but when there is a parent willing to do his/her best to provide love, care, and a happy home to a child, should we not do everything we can to support their choice and help them remain together?

My life would not be the same without Amelia in it...but how different would her life be if she had a chance to be raised with her first family? I'm not saying I would change my decision to adopt, I'm saying that in addition to adopting the world's orphans, we need to look at ALL the reasons children aren't with their first families and see what we can do to help keep them together.