Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Wendy McElroy Has It Right Regarding Fathers' Rights

Among the last overtly sexist laws remaining on the books in this country--and, not so coincidentally, supported by the American Left--are the feminist-inspired, anti-father laws that drive our family courts. Those laws are often in conflict with a natural human desire to be a parent and lead to situations like this one. Who's right? Who's wrong?

I'll tell you one thing. For those of you who are going to jump on the biological father and claim he should do "what's in the best interests of the child", tell me that you'd walk away if someone took away your child at birth and gave him/her to someone else.

I'll tell you another. For those of you who are going to jump on the adoptive parents and say that they shouldn't keep the child from his biological father, you don't know much about the love that parents feel for their children--and that love has nothing to do with the blood that runs through their veins.

Who's wrong here? The biological mother, for starters. Oh, and to use a very old saying, the law's an ass.

4 comments:

CaliforniaTeacherGuy said...

Oh, so you read Dickens, too? Yes, it was Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist, who uttered that memorable saying, "The law is a ass." (He was fond of not using "an.")

As an adoptive father, I totally concur about parental love having nothing to do with blood. I once wrote this about my elder son:

Hugging him made me realize all over again how much I love this child who was born half a world away in Seoul, Korea. Never mind that his eyes are brown instead of blue, or that his hair is straight and black and wispy instead of thick and blond and wavy. Never mind that nobody knows his genetic makeup or his biological family’s medical history. And never mind that he came into this world being cooed over by a Korean-speaking amah, rather than hearing lullabies sung in English by his American mama. Although he’s not flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, he’s definitely heart of my heart.

Anonymous said...

This was one of the many reasons darling wife and I adopted from Korea and as California Teacher Guy stated so eloquently our little girl is the "heart of my heart".

BTW thanks CTG - I knew I heard the phrase "The law is a ass" somewhere but I just couldn't place it (now I won't wake up at 2 in the morning trying to figure it out! :)

Anonymous said...

Though I forgot to add, I am in complete agreement - the bio father got screwed over by the bio mother in this incident and the poor baby is probably going to end up paying the price.

Anonymous said...

I know about three couples who are adopting - all the babies are from overseas. They adopt for this very reason - they don't want to lose their babies when the biological parent shows up on the doorstep.

Policies like these hurt only American children. Less and less will be adopted becuase of this very reason.