Corporeal Punishment for the Masses

The rise of corporeal punishment theory is a troubling cultural phenomenon which really takes us back to the dark ages of unquestioned rule by authority. The link between spanking and conservative Christianity is insulting to the vast majority of believers who do not condone religiously inspired child abuse. It also creates a strange affinity between Catholicism—where child sex abuse has run rampant for years—and evangelicalism—where beating children has seemingly become the God-given norm; the Catholics get the sex and the Evangelicals get the hide. Where can a godly child find religion without loosing their heart and soul? This ...

International Adoption: it’s even more complicated than you thought

From today's New York Times, a followup to their August article on international adoption trafficking. But many parents saw China as the cleanest of international adoption choices. Its population-control policy, which limited many families to one child, drove couples to abandon subsequent children or to give up daughters in hopes of bearing sons to inherit their property and take care of them in old age. China had what adoptive parents in America wanted: a supply of healthy children in need of families. As Mr. Mayer reasoned, “If anything, the number of children needing an adoptive home was so huge that it outstripped the number of people who ...

Chinese Babies Kidnapped and Sold for Adoption

From today's New York Times: The abduction of children is a continuing problem in China, where a lingering preference for boys coupled with strict controls on the number of births have helped create a lucrative black market in children. Just last week, the police announced that they had rescued 89 babies from child traffickers, and the deputy director of the Public Security Ministry assailed what he called the practice of “buying and selling children in this country.” But parents in Longhui say that in their case, it was local government officials who treated babies as a source of revenue, routinely imposing fines of $1,000 or more ...

International Adoption Racketeering

Using a strategy pioneered by my law firm in this 2006 lawsuit against JCIS and NCFA-certified World Child International Adoption Agency, five couples recently filed a federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) claim against Main Street Adoption Services, based in (where else - the epicenter of bad adoptions) Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The plaintiffs claim the international adoption agency that promised each a baby from Guatemala scammed them in a "bait and switch" scheme. They accuse the agency and three individuals of conspiring with one another "for the illegal purpose of committing fraudulent adoptions through a bait and switch ...

Adoption, Toilet Seat Covers and Pet Rocks

After his toilet seat cover and pet rock ventures failed, Long Island attorney Kevin Cohen turned to another get rich quick business - adoptions. Cohen is accused of stealing $323,750 from 12 families and trying to take money from another family through a scheme involving non-existent birth mothers, forged documents and the impersonation of a bank employee and a personal reference. While Cohen was passionate about adoption, as an adoptee himself, "his true passion was money," said Nassau County Assistant District Attorney Andrew Garbarino who filed a 69 count indictment against the jailed former attorney. Garbarino described the process by which he ...

NYTimes: After Haiti Quake, the Chaos of U.S. Adoptions

Excerpts from this article tell it all: On Jan. 12, a devastating earthquake toppled Haiti’s capital and set off an international adoption bonanza in which some safeguards meant to protect children were ignored. Leading the way was the Obama administration, which responded to the crisis, and to the pleas of prospective adoptive parents and the lawmakers assisting them, by lifting visa requirements for children in the process of being adopted by Americans. Although initially planned as a short-term, small-scale evacuation, the rescue effort quickly evolved into a baby lift unlike anything since the Vietnam War. It went on for months; fell ...

International Adoption Law Update: L.M.B. v. E.R.J.

This unusual international adoption case, which was recently decided by New York's highest court, has far-reaching implications for current and future best-practices as well as important policy implications. In L.M.B. v. E.R.J., 2010 NY Slip Op 1345; 14 N.Y.3d 100 (February 16, 2010), the New York Court of Appeals was called upon to untangle a New York adoption by ERJ (mother) and a Cambodian adoption by LMB (father). Each adoptive parent, who were never married to one another, claimed to be the child's only legal parent. The child, Doe, was found abandoned in Cambodia and brought to New York by ERJ for medical treatment. Subsequently ERJ and her ...

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