CHILD REMOVAL-FOSTER CARE- TERMINATION-ADOPTION PROCESS PORTRAYED AS NEVER BEFORE

An article by Rachel Aviv in the New Yorker magazine of December 2, 2013 follows very closely and scrupulously the inexorable process our present legal system provides to turn children into adoptable commodities and parents into strangers. In portraying this process and system, the author gives a very detailed history of one case, quoting the exact words of the child, the parent, and the social workers, lawyers, judges and psychologists involved. This is supplemented by excerpts from various academic studies of the process. It also gives a brief history of how child neglect came to be viewed as a problem for the legal system and adoption came to be regarded as a “felt need” and then a right. This is a mostly unprecedented article that could prove very informative to  lawyers and judges who see such cases in the course of their work. — Richard Crouch