Whose the REAL Culprit?

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Below is a news article detailing the indictment of Melissa Christensen by a federal grand jury. My only point to blogging about this, is that the very climate of adoption in America literally ASKS for fraudulent behavior. If ALL financial transactions, and inhumane child-hunting, supply-demand mentality were eliminated from adoption and ethical child-centered adoption laws were enacted and enforced, we wouldn't see articles like these.

Adoption in America is NOT about finding homes for children who truly need them. Foster children languish in foster care, while thousands (if not millions) of "waiting" parents and adoption "professionals" seek infants by pursuing young, vulnerable pregnant mothers (the internet is inundated with "Dear Birthmother" letters literally begging for a newborn), with unenforcable "promises" of "on-going contact" with their child, housing, college-educations, and gushes of how "heroic and selfless" the mother would be if she would just "give her child a better life" and "bless a couple who can't have their own" with HER baby. Since when should it be legal to advertise to purchase a human-life? Yet that is exactly what our culture does, without regard to the children involved.

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Desperate potential adoptive parents, willing to part with thousands of dollars, unethical adoption "marketing", "counseling" (recruitment) of 'birth mothers', and financial incentives naturally create an environment for unethical dilemmas in adoption. Stories like this only prove to shed light on its inherent problems in the first place.

The ones who truly suffer are NOT the poor potential adoptive parents who experience a "failed adoption" because the "birth mother changes her mind." It is the child who is caught in a web of greed, unethical laws and societal myths regarding how a family can be magically "built" through a legal transference of a human-being's very identity, (financially motivated business-deal) resulting in a baby being traumatized & separated from it's Mother, God-given identity, family, heritage, history, and even an accurate original birth certificate ~ all based on archaic "sealed records" laws perpetuating adoption as we know it.

Why aren't adoption agencies and attorneys being held to the same strict "non-directive counseling" statutes as other mental health professionals? Why aren't they being indicted for separating mothers and infants through subtle counseling/coercion/shame-based tactics which fail to acknowledge research-based outcomes regarding the life-long impact of adoption loss on all parties involved? Why are adoption "professionals" who make their living by transacting adoptions even permitted to provide "counseling" in the first place? Isn't that a blatant conflict of interest?

Why aren't adoption "professionals" who are caught red-handed in unethical practices indicted for child-trafficking, instead of given a "slap on the hand" and given a "get out of jail" card, by promoting political lobbies to state legislators willing to reduce child-trafficking charges so that they WON'T be held accountable through potential felony violations? Yet this is the story of American adoption. State by state.

I say that Melissa Christenson is no more "guilty" of adoption fraud than those "professionals" who participate in the billion-dollar industry of supply/demand-based, unregulated adoption "business" that already permeates our society. Something stinks.

http://www.rivertowns.net/daily/pch/c080828/

Pierce County woman indicted in adoption scheme
A federal grand jury in Madison has indicted a Maiden Rock woman on charges of wire fraud in connection with an adoption scheme.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office for western district of Wisconsin, Melissa Christensen, 31, has been charged in a 16-count indictment this week by a federal grand jury.

The indictment alleges that Christensen told several individuals that she was having a baby and wanted to put the child up for adoption. The indictment alleges that she never intended to provide a baby.

The indictment also alleges that Christensen received money from the victims for phone bills, travel, and other items.

According to the indictment, Christiansen contacted individuals in Texas, Arkansas, Virginia and Ohio about the adoption.

If convicted, Christensen faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison on each county.

The case was investigated by both the Pierce County Sheriff's Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.