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 Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 3:30 pm
This link is to a fairly horrifying article concerning a woman who adopted 11 children for the subsidies and basically kept them chained up at all times. Pertinent snip Adoption is supposed to be a refuge for parentless children, but for Stephen Wells it was a house of horrors. Since his adoption roughly 15 years ago, Wells says, he has been attacked with a stick and a can of evaporated milk. He says he was handcuffed and tied up and forced to sleep on a cold tile floor in a locked hallway, where he soiled himself because he wasn't allowed to use the bathroom. Scars mark his wrists from years of restraints. Police say he was denied education, medical care and food, and basically spent his entire life indoors. His home was his prison. And the perp: Quote: Leekin, 62, and originally from Trinidad, used intimidation and violence to control her 11 adopted children for years while earning a staggering $1.26 million in adoptive subsidies, police said. She has been charged with multiple counts of abuse and could face up to 190 years in prison. ... Authorities believe she used four aliases to adopt the 11 children in New York City from 1988 to 1996. She adopted only special-needs children, the ones who brought the highest subsidies — up to $55 a day, according to the New York City Administration for Children's Services. Ugh. Can anyone still try to say the adoption system isn't an ungodly mess when this woman managed to use four false names to adopt eleven special-needs children and then to get away with what she did for that long? I also have to wonder, what about the adopters like this who don't get caught? I also wonder if any lifer could read this and try to claim that having these children grow up under circumstances of torture and abuse on this level would be a kindness compared to abortion? Urgh.
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Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 3:40 pm
Why don't you know, if the child smiles just once, that one smile overrides all of that?
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Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:57 pm
Truly sickening.
It shows just how ******** up the adoption system really can be.
I stand by my morals.. if I'm bringing a child into this world then god dammit it's going to be MY child that I raise. 3nodding
After reading this article: Apparently one of her children also DIED and they're still looking for his body.
That's way better than abortion. Better to live and suffer and die a terribly painful and long drawn out death.
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Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 11:48 am
I absolutely and completely cannot stand the current romanticization of adoption. In my area, young girls are taught the so called wonders of adoption from school to television. First they tell you about the plight of the childless couple, of how desperately they want and deserve a child. Then comes the assertion that these people can clearly provide a child with the life a child deserves because they have money (as if money was the sole indicator of fitness of a parent). Last comes the assurances that you can pick up your life and act like nothing happened once you've created this child for some nameless upper-middle class couple with a college education.
No one talks about the reasons why the couple hasn't adopted a child that is already available (older, non-white, disabled, etc). No one brings up how this wonderful couple you are supposed to produce a baby for won't want the baby if your baby has these same problems. There is no discussion about what will happen to your baby if these couple who want a perfect white infant won't take your baby. The assumption that this wealthy couple will provide a better home than a poor person (like you) could provide. The effects of carrying a child only to lose him/her to another person is completely ignored. No mention is made of how you'll likely spend massive amounts of time afterwards crying, grieving, hurting, and wondering. No one advertises how hard it's going to be.
My aunt gave her first and only son up for adoption. She got to spend the next years wondering if he was healthy, if he was safe, if he was happy, if he was being raised well, and so on. She got to wonder these things until the adoptive parents contacted her and informed her that her son had died in a car accident. Then she got to sit around and wait to see if they would even provide her with any more information. They didn't have to tell her anything; they didn't even have to tell her that he had died.
I'm not inherently against adoption. In fact, I believe that adoption is good, if handled correctly. But adoption is not the be all and end all one size fits all solution. It is not easy. It's hard. Only emphasizing the appealing parts of adoption is not kind. If the woman doesn't know how profoundly hard adoption is going to be, she's only going to be hurt when her decision wasn't at all what she expected it to be.
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Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 1:09 pm
With all the people supposedly 'barred' from adopting, how the hell does THIS sleazebag get 11 kids out of the system?! eek
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Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 2:38 pm
Not to downplay the tragedy of this situation... but is this not the equivalent of the mythical teenage slut (tm)?
We have on our hands here a news story of one instance of something horrible in the adoption system. I'm sure it would be easy to find another dozen or two more stories similar to this... However, as sad as these situations are, aren't they just as much of an anomoly as the teenage girl that intentionally gets pregnant because abortions tickle?
I do not think that this sort of thing is statistically significant enough to make such broad sweeping accusations that the entire adoption system is corrupt. I'd need some more stats, some hard facts, about how frequent adoptee abuse is before alleging the whole adoption system is cruel to children on par with the statistics we have found that demonstrate how racist and ageist it is.
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Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 4:43 pm
Talon-chan Not to downplay the tragedy of this situation... but is this not the equivalent of the mythical teenage slut (tm)? We have on our hands here a news story of one instance of something horrible in the adoption system. I'm sure it would be easy to find another dozen or two more stories similar to this... However, as sad as these situations are, aren't they just as much of an anomoly as the teenage girl that intentionally gets pregnant because abortions tickle? I do not think that this sort of thing is statistically significant enough to make such broad sweeping accusations that the entire adoption system is corrupt. I'd need some more stats, some hard facts, about how frequent adoptee abuse is before alleging the whole adoption system is cruel to children on par with the statistics we have found that demonstrate how racist and ageist it is. I think it's not that all adoptions turn out terribly-- quite a few turn out wonderfully. I think it's that Pro-Lifers refuse to acknowledge that not all adoptions or children given up for adoption reach happy homes or have happy endings. Just like us Pro-Choicers have admitted that some women don't use birth control and don't care and don't mind getting abortions, or that some women DO get an abortion and later regret it. We don't out and out deny that this stuff happens-- we acknowledge that it happens and acknowledge that it is a valid reason to think twice about abortion (even if we don't agree with using it as a grounds to make it illegal). The point isn't so much that adoption is evil, the point is that it's not perfect and Pro-Lifers seem hardpressed to ever recognize this fact. Also, the risk of this, even though it's small, is not a risk that some of us are prepared to take rather than abortion. This is an example of why some of us would rather have an abortion than give the child up for adoption.. just like examples of women regretting an abortion that makes some women choose to go the adoption route. It's not black and white but more that we all need to see that neither option is 100 percent perfect and pretty and we're liars if we pretend otherwise.
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Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 5:19 pm
Lady Adriata The point isn't so much that adoption is evil, the point is that it's not perfect and Pro-Lifers seem hardpressed to ever recognize this fact. Yes, thank you. That is what I was trying to drive at. I fully concede that I presented my point poorly. That's what I get for posting in a fit of WTF.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:41 am
That is so NASTY and IMHUMANE!!
It's just another example of "slavery at our backdoor" going on, even in the rich, industrialized countries. If it's not a sexual slave trade, or indentured servitude trade, it's stuff like this. confused
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