Adopciones a cara descubierta
Por Pascual Ortuño Muñoz, Director General de Dret i Entitats Jurídiques de la Generalitat de Catalunya (EL PERIÓDICO, 16/11/08):
Las instituciones jurídicas van conformándose a lo largo de la historia, y se adaptan a la realidad social en la que las normas deben operar. La función de la norma jurídica es la de regular las relaciones sociales que por su relevancia lo necesitan, y también la de expresar el ideal del deber ser, según la conciencia social, el ethos al que se refería ya Aristóteles.
En materia de adopción, las coyunturas sociales han marcado siempre esta institución de manera muy significativa. En…
Adopción internacional de alto riesgo
Por Ignasi Carreras, director del Instituto de Innovación Social de Esade (EL PAÍS, 22/11/07):
La lamentable actuación de la organización El Arca de Zoé en Chad puede provocar un incremento de las restricciones por parte de algunos países a los procesos de adopción internacional.
Seguramente, la finalidad del iluminado fundador de esta organización francesa, Eric Breteau, y sus colegas que participaron en la rocambolesca misión para “salvar vidas de niños desamparados” no pretendía que los 103 niños fueran adoptados en el país galo. Todo apunta a que sus métodos, absolutamente contrarios a los de cualquier ONG humanitaria, iban más bien orientados a…
Los niños como negocio
Por Jesús López-Medel, diputado del PP por Madrid (EL PERIÓDICO, 18/11/07):
Guatemala. Julio del 2000. Tres años antes se habían suscrito los acuerdos de paz. Acababa así una guerra civil en la que, junto a la guerrilla y el Ejército, fuerzas paramilitares cometieron un brutal genocidio de casi 300.000 mayas. Para trasmitir las ventajas de la participación política mediante los cauces democráticos, y no con la utilización de la violencia, acudí allí para estar con los dirigentes del Frente Revolucionario que poco antes eran, evidentemente, proscritos e ilegales.
Fue una experiencia política extraordinaria. Aún más, humana. Convivir con ellos me permitió conocer…
Madre sin hijas
Por Rosa María Pereda, periodista y escritora (EL PAÍS, 14/02/07):
Cuando yo era pequeña, las niñas jugábamos a un juego. Se enfrentaban literalmente una niña, la madre sin hijas, y otra, con familia numerosa, y en una danza simple y cruel, a base de salmodia y elección, la madre sin hijas iba adoptando a las niñas excesivas del continente de enfrente, según sus preferencias. Era un juego demográfico y aleccionador, que ponía jerarquías entre todas nosotras. Primero las madres, líderes naturales. Después, las hijas más favorecidas por el deseo. Y luego las últimas, que nunca irían a buscar las llaves al…
Now, all our English liberties are becoming orphans
By William Rees-Mogg (THE TIMES, 29/01/07):
The issue of the Roman Catholic adoption agencies, and their refusal to arrange adoptions for same-sex partnerships, I find altogether fascinating. It involves fundamental questions of liberty, of freedom of religion, of European law and of political philosophy. In our collapsing political society it may prove to be only one week’s wonder, but it is important to think it through.
The dispute all starts with a European regulation — with one of those European incursions into British sovereignty that hardly one British person in a thousand was aware of at the time it happened. We think that…
Let us have fudge, hope and charity
By Minette Marrin (THE TIMES, 28/01/07):
Let a hundred flowers bloom, Chairman Mao once said to China’s repressed intellectuals, inviting diverse ideas. Sure enough, when the intellectuals obliged, Mao ruthlessly mowed them all down. Our rulers do not believe in diversity either, although they are constantly nagging us to join them in celebrating it. What they really believe in, on the contrary, is orthodoxy and they are increasingly prepared to enforce it. That is the alarming lesson of the uproar about Catholic charities and gay adoption.
For our orthodox masters in parliament and in the public services it is not enough that gay…
Down Westminster corridors the poison is flowing
By Mary Ann Sieghart (THE TIMES, 26/01/07):
The issue of gay adoption seems to be peculiarly toxic in British politics. First it did for Iain Duncan Smith, marking the beginning of his demise as Conservative leader. Now it looks like doing the same for Tony Blair.
“Going, going, gone”, would be a good description of the Prime Minister’s authority. The atmosphere has changed markedly since Christmas. Mr Blair has taken to saying to colleagues “Well, I won’t be around for that”, when they discuss policy together. In return, they have ceased to defer to him.
Several ministers would have voted against any exemption for…
The Mystery of the Chinese Baby Shortage
By Beth Nonte Russell, the author of the forthcoming “Forever Lily: An Unexpected Mother’s Journey to Adoption in China” and the co-founder of the Golden Phoenix Foundation (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 23/01/07):
ACCORDING to a State Department report released this week, American citizens adopted 6,493 children from China in 2006, a decline of 18 percent from the previous year’s total of 7,906. And yet, just over a month ago, this newspaper reported that China had prepared strict new criteria for foreign adoption applications because the country claimed it lacked “available” babies to meet the “spike” in demand.
China has always limited foreign…
Why Doesn’t White Adopt Black?
By David Nicholson, a Washington writer (THE WASHINGTON POST, 24/12/06):
Whenever I see a white couple with an Asian or Hispanic child, I can’t help wondering whether adoption — like the personal ads — is one of the last areas of American life where naked expressions of racial preference are acceptable.
I know that sentiment seems ungenerous. Most of the children I see would have grown up in dire circumstances if they hadn’t been adopted, and many will find me mean-spirited for gainsaying any child a chance at a happy and successful life.
All the same, I can’t understand why so many white…
A new way to cut crime: forcible adoption
By Minette Marrin (THE TIMES, 03/12/06):
Jonathan Swift made a famous Modest Proposal in 1729 that the babies of the Irish poor should be eaten to prevent them growing up to a poverty-stricken life of crime. It was, of course, satirical. But nearly 300 years later I would like to make a modest proposal about babies that is almost as shocking, yet not at all satirical.
I’ve come reluctantly to think, especially after the senseless killing of Tom ap Rhys Pryce, that perhaps some babies, in the public interest and to prevent them growing up to a life of violence, should be forcibly…
Our ‘Africa’ Lenses
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a novelist, is the author of “Half of a Yellow Sun” (THE WASHINGTON POST, 13/11/06):
Growing up in Nsukka, a small university town in eastern Nigeria, I often had malaria. It was so commonplace that when you went to the medical center, a nurse would say, “Malaria has come again, hasn’t it?” Because I know how easily treatable malaria is, I was surprised to learn that thousands of people die from it each year. People like the relatives of David Banda, Madonna’s adopted son from Malawi.
But of course most American media do not say “Malawi”; they just…
Material Mom
By Eugene Robinson (THE WASHINGTON POST, 20/10/06):
It would be easy to ridicule Madonna for her “I’ll take that one over there” adoption of a baby from an orphanage in Malawi. But it would be wrong.
No, really, it would be wrong.
Granted, the Material Girl makes it hard to take her side. For those who haven’t been following the story, Madonna has ostentatiously joined the rush of Beautiful People to the villages and shantytowns of Africa, where there is a wealth of poverty and suffering to bemoan. She picked Malawi, a small, impoverished, AIDS-stricken nation in southern Africa and has pledged to donate…
An idiotic position to adopt
By Alice Miles (THE TIMES, 18/10/06):
ONE IN EVERY 13 children in the developing world today is an orphan, says Unicef. That is 143 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Ethiopia alone has five million, who cost more than is spent each year on health or education. And it isn’t just a black and brown issue: more than a million children in Europe and Central Asia live in residential institutions. Including thousands in Britain.
And among all these millions of children is one, David Banda, whom Madonna is seeking to adopt. (Unicef defines orphans in the developing world…
As a Malawian, I’m sure this father will want his son back
By David Chitedze, a Malawian living in Britain (THE GUARDIAN, 18/10/06):
Yohane Banda, father of the baby Madonna is trying to adopt, may say he is happy that his son will be taken to a better place - but he is probably questioning whether he has done the right thing (Madonna adoption baby flown out of Malawi, October 17).Coming from the same ethnic group, religion and district as him, I sense that he did not consult enough members of his extended family, let alone the late wife’s family who feel the child is theirs too.
Adoption, especially when it involves taking the…
This won’t start a trend
By Zoe Williams (THE GUARDIAN, 18/10/06):
The adoption of one-year-old David Banda from Malawi has been cited as a case of Madonna flexing the muscles of her fame and fortune. Speaking personally, I should much rather see those muscles than her regular muscles, which put one in mind of a hungry horse.More general wisdom, of course, is that this is the end point of celebrity arrogance. They can book tables in restaurants for which regular people have to wait six months, hell, they can even drink and drive, but they cannot play fast and loose with the lives of infants.
Of course, there…
Baby trafficking may not be all bad
By Minette Marrin (THE TIMES, 08/10/06):
Having a baby is an awesome responsibility. Adopting one is in some ways even greater. It means taking in for ever a person about whom you know little or nothing; it means choosing a child without having any real understanding about the choice you are making, knowing nothing of its family.
It is true that some aspects of the choice are obvious; if you go abroad you can select for sex, beauty, race and country of origin. But there is something distasteful about that kind of designer baby shopping. In any case it has nothing to do…
Madonna and child
By Hannah Pool, the author of ‘My Father’s Daughter’ (THE GUARDIAN, 06/10/06):
What is it with celebrities and African babies? They just can’t leave them alone. According to reports, Madonna is the latest celebrity to adopt a child from the developing world. If the story is true, the 48-year-old singer has adopted a one-year-old boy from Malawi after a visit to the country. I’m afraid only two words spring to mind: vanity project. Madge wants a baby, so she goes to Africa and “saves” one - that way she gets her baby and scores points for doing a good deed.
I have…
