Responsible birth parents are best option

Over the past several weeks I have followed the stories you have published about little Veronica, the 2-year old Native American girl who was recently removed from an adoptive home on James Island to live with her birth father. I can no longer stay silent.

As an adoptive parent of two children, I can imagine the pain and loss that the Capobiancos must feel because of the court’s decision to give Veronica to her father. When we adopt, we immediately open our hearts and lives to our new children and begin to think of them as our own in the same way as do parents by birth.

However, I am also a child welfare professional who has spent most of my career fostering the philosophy that children are best served by their birth families if that is reasonable. It is for this reason that public policy requires that, before an adoption is finalized, both the mother and the father (who are not otherwise unfit) be given the choice of voluntarily relinquishing their parental rights or keeping the child. This is true for all American children, not just those covered by the Indian Child Welfare Act. This rule can be found in all federal and state adoption laws.

In the case of Veronica, your coverage indicates that her father expressed his desire to take his daughter as soon as he became aware that she had been placed for adoption. She was four months old at the time. It would have been in her best interest, as well as that of the Capobiancos, to release her immediately, thereby maximizing the baby’s opportunity to begin bonding with her father. It would also have minimized the period of legal fighting which allowed the Capobiancos to continue to strengthen a parent-child bond that most professionals (both legal and child welfare) would have advised them was doomed to end.

The real test of love sometimes requires us to give up someone we cherish rather than put them through a drawn-out battle or worse.

I think it is inappropriate for this family and this community to attempt to overturn a law (that has been in effect for more than 30 years) simply because this family loves this child and wants to keep her. We must assume that her father loves her also since he has worked for almost two years to get her back within his family circle.

We need to be cautious and think about this case. But your coverage seems slanted toward generating sympathy for the Capobiancos over Veronica’s father.

It seems that he should be commended for being the kind of man who wants to raise his child himself.

Chrysandra Gantt Holloway

Aquaduct Street

Charleston