Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 5, 1993 TAG: 9309100365
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
No Solomon-like court decision kept her from the trauma of being taken from her ``Mommy'' and ``Dad,'' Roberta and Jan DeBoer, and placed into the care of two strangers: her biological parents, Dan and Cara Schmidt.
The law has been followed. But has justice been done?
Certainly not for Jessica, who at age 21/2, must grieve for her parents and learn to accept another set in their place. And justice for Jessica was what should have been most important, to the courts and to the parents, biological and otherwise.
Neither set has been blameless in putting this little girl they all love through such heartache. Where in little Jessica's short life has anyone put aside his or her own deeply felt needs and put her welfare first?
Did Cara Schmidt when, as an unmarried mother, she decided to give up her child for adoption - but to withhold this information from the father and to lie about who he was? Her dishonesty and poor judgment set the stage for the entire sad drama that was to be played out.
Did the DeBoers when, after having baby Jessica only two weeks, they decided to fight to keep her, though her biological father had just learned of his paternity and wanted his child? The legal case was weighted heavily against them, yet they fought on, cementing the parent-child bond for more than two years and making what proved to be an inevitable separation more painful with each passing day.
Did the Schmidts when, after the case had dragged on for this length of time, they exercised their legal right to take Jessica - or will she be Anna now? - from the loving home and the adults who have nurtured her as her parents? (Who are, at this point, her parents by any standard except the legal one.)
Did the legal system, either in the drawn-out process this case went through, or in its final adjudication?
No.
And there, untouched by the passions of warring parties, is where society must try to help future Jessicas.
Her case points to a need for reviewing the adoption process. Should there be federal adoption guidelines and procedures? When and how should the rights of unwed fathers, many of whom show no interest in the responsibilities, be terminated? Where should the rights of both biological parents end, and the rights of adoptive parents begin? Should all adoptions be handled by adoption agencies rather than private attorneys, who are advocates for prospective adoptive parents rather than children?
And who is to speak for the best interests of the child?
During last year's presidential campaign, Hillary-bashers criticized the future first lady's support for children's rights. A wail went up that, if she had her way, children would be suing their parents for making them eat their peas, divorcing their parents for imposing curfews.
But what an outraged public is seeing in the case of Jessica is that, when the interests of biological parents conflict with the interests of children, it is the parents' interests that carry the greater weight.
And, sad as her ordeal has been, the result for Jessica may prove better than for many children. If perhaps not always for the best of reasons, at least both homes wanted her. With time, let us hope, her psyche will heal and she will grow to love her new family.
As her messy case illustrates, the parental conflicts that come before the courts are anything but trivial. There should be no fuming about whether kids will be able to get out of cleaning their plates. There are serious questions to be addressed on what rights children need for their well-being.
by CNB