Quotable Quotes: No Unparented Children

"Human rights documents throughout the modern era make clear that the family is the fundamental group unit of society, and the child is a part of his/her family as a matter of both basic human need and fundamental human right. These fundamental human rights include the right of a child to remain with the family to which she was born, and the corollary right of parents to the care and custody of each child born to them. Thus, the family that the child belongs with, as a matter of the rights of the child and of her parents, is clearly the family into which the child is born. Further, the child is born not only to a father and mother, but also into a broader set of relationships, including siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and so on. Thus, as a matter of widespread cultural practice, human need, and fundamental rights, the family into which the child is born extends beyond the parents, and beyond the nuclear family, to include an inter-generational and extensive family group......

"Beginning a discourse on adoption with the image of a child alone, without family ties, is inherently misleading. Children do not fall from the sky; they come into this world amidst a web of relationships. When a child is found alone, the first question that must be asked, therefore, is how the separation of child from parents and family occurred. The first relevant image is not of the child already alone, but of the child with her original family; the next relevant image is that of the event which tragically separated the child from her parents....

..."there is... no such thing as an “unparented” child. No one comes into this world without having parents. The phrase “unparented child” suggests a child who really, in fact, has no parent. Such a person has never existed."

BRAVO, David Smolin!!!

Excerpted from: 

David M. Smolin and Elizabeth Bartholet. "The Debate" Intercountry Adoption: Policies, Practices, and Outcomes. Ed. Judith L. Gibbons & Karen Smith Rotabi. Williston, VT: Ashgate, 2012.
Download available at: http://works.bepress.com/david_smolin/11


The book is to include chapters by the following, many of whom are well known scholars, thinkers, and stakeholders in the field of adoption:  Peter Selman; Jonathan Dickens; Kathleen Ja Sook Berquist; Karen Smith Rotabi; Cristina Nedelcu and Victor Groza; Kay Johnson; Kelley McCreery Bunkers and Victor Groza; Kelley McCreery Bunkers, Karen Smith Rotabi, and Benyam Dawit Mezmur;  Femmie Juffer and Marinus H. van Ijzendoom; Laurie C. Miller; Monica Dalen; Elizabeth Bartholet and David Smolin; Judith L. Gibbons and Karen Smith Rotabi; Thomas M. Crea; Jesus Palacios; Rhoda Scherman; Hollee McGinnis; and Judith L. Gibbons and Karen Smith Rotabi.  The book is can be ordered online for a discount at Ashgate Publishing. At $108, it is priced for serious research and university libraries than for personal or public libraries.