Of late I’ve been trying to get my head around the discriminatory adoption laws the Human Rights Review Tribunal has recently bought to public awareness.
According to the 61-year-old legislation, the Adoption Act 1955, a child of a disabled parent can be put up for adoption without her consent.
The law also says that a same sex de-facto or civil union couple can’t adopt.
The first time I heard this, I almost didn’t believe it. A piece of legislation this out-dated and archaic surely should be amended or wiped out by now.
It is not enough to argue that no one would take a child away from the parent without their consent these days. The point is that they can make that judgement call if they want to and face no consequences under the law.
The decision as to whether a person or couple can take care of a child is their decision alone – nobody else has the right to have a say in that decision.
For many women with disabilities, going through a pregnancy is already an intensely difficult and emotional process. I can only imagine that going through that separation afterwards would be the most heartbreaking experience of a lifetime.
As a disabled woman myself, the possibility of this ever happening to me terrifies me completely.
I do know there are systems in place for a disabled parent to support them in whatever they need to take care of their child, which is great and we should invest more into these support systems. But again, this is only half of that security measure.
Even if this hasn’t happened in a fair while (I’m unaware of any cases where it has in New Zealand), it’s about time we take the step to solidify the rights of a parent over their child.
The Greens to their credit, have been trying to get this law changed ever since they have been in parliament.
There is a belief that the act is superseded by the Human Rights Act 1993. And other legislation like the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, and the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000.
However, I’m with you on this one, not one of those acts, fundamentally protects the rights of disabled parents. I’m not aware of any court case involving this act in relation to disabled parents. I do know of some LGBT couples who are currently challenging this act. My hope is that, when they expose it’s weaknesses, provisions for disabled will also be talked about.
Adoption should ALWAYS be about the child’s rights and the child’s needs NOT adults needs and wants …as the child has NO CHOICE about its parentage or how when etc it was conceived . Thus the child’s needs and wants should always be paramount in adoption decisions by adults
Adults in general make adult choices freely (most of time ( ie not with disability ) how they will live and who they will live with in their adult life.
Reality is we do not live in a utopia world and never will..so sometimes yes life can sometimes seem to be unfair to adults etc
When a child adoption is considered to be put into an unrelated home then it should be a home that has proven mature adults ,and also be checked as much as possible that the home be a safe and secure for the child to live in.
It should also be in the unrelated home have balanced parentage ( ie a Mum (female) and a Dad ( male ) role models. This will help to assure the home life that the child grows up provides a balanced outlook to life issues. The reality in life males and females do often have different out looks on life values etc and its many issues.
For those who say a child doesn’t need two parents, ie a mum or a dad ..as a person whom grew up without a male role model ( my dad died when I was a small child ) I personally can say that attitude is self centered rubbish, I always felt the loss keenly of a male model in my life as a child. A Dad around in my life I know which would have helped me considerably when I was growing into adulthood to help me have a balanced perspective on making my life adult choices.
Seems to me our present laws now overall seems to fit all these requirements I believe are important for a child with adoptions
This is an extraordinary statement for me to make but I do make it after an enormous amount of research:
One of the foundation stones of the New World Order is child trafficking and hundreds of thousands of children worldwide are removed from their homes by child welfare agencies and other agencies each year and these children are then funneled into the pedophile system. The problem is massive and this system is protected by many NWO Heads of State (for various reasons) down to the lowest procurer on the street. The solution is simple and that is to elect those who advocate protection laws for the child and family unit.
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