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Below is a sad video about a mother who was a victim of domestic violence. Her child was taken as a result and put up for adoption. All of this was done in secret courts in the name of the “best interest of the child.” Don’t think that this could never happen in the United States. We are on the same path and have got to do something to stop it. Abuse does need to be investigated but the burden of proof must remain on the government. Kids staying with their parents is what is in the best interest of the child!

Maintaining the fundamental right of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children is key and it can only be protected through a Constitutional Amendment. The reason that this is the only way is because of the source of the threat being federal courts and international law. Please join our campaign and help propel this amendment to a national issue. This is far broader than liberals against conservatives or Republicans against Democrats. It is about kids and their parents and how kids need their parents.

One last quick note, the last good Supreme Court case on parental rights, Troxel v. Granville, involved a mother fighting for her parental rights who was a victim of domestic violence. Even though the mom won that case, there are significant reasons to be worried about the precarious position of the child-parent bond.

Citizens across the United Kingdom are up in arms after learning that the British government has been providing “perverse economic incentives” to social service agencies that remove children from their parents in order to meet adoption quotas.

GOVERNMENT BREAK-UPS

According to British news sources, 30 English councils shared a payout of £18 million this year for meeting Government targets to increase adoptions. This latest news comes amidst new data which shows that although social services removed more than 2.5 times as many infants from their homes (citing safety risks), the number of murders in which the victim was less than a year old has actually increased, not decreased.

According to a senior lecturer in social work at London Metropolitan University, “Performance targets and the tick-box culture are undermining professional judgment.”

PERVERSE INCENTIVES

Similar “incentives” exist in U.S. law. According to the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, federal rules provide “bounties to states of up to $8,000 or more per child for every adoption they finalize over a baseline number,” creating “an incentive to place a child with little concern about whether the placement will really last.”

As a result, “states and private agencies now have financial incentives to keep children in foster care and financial incentives to place them for adoption - but no financial incentives to keep them in their own homes or return them there.” Read the rest of this entry »