
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 19, 1993                   TAG: 9307200574
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHERE'S THE JUSTICE FOR THE CHILD?

MY HUSBAND and I attended the "Justice for Jessica DeBoer" rally at the U.S. Supreme Court steps recently. There lies the last hope for children's rights in court proceedings involving them. By ruling that the only pertinent issue is parental-custody law, the Michigan Supreme Court has declared Jessica's welfare as irrelevant. She is reduced to the status of a possession, void of feelings, thought and memory. This has nothing to do with what is "just" but only with what is legal.

Time and again, the courts treat the adoption alternative and foster care as "Plan B Parenting." We encourage people to open their homes to unwanted children and remind them that it is crucial to a child's mental health and self-esteem to bond with a loving adult. Then, hypocritically, we declare the relationship as expendable at the whim of the "original owner." Love and trust the child feels for the custodial parent is irrelevant because a stranger "holds title" to her.

Rather than rebuilding a family, we are destroying one. And rationalizing that, with therapy, Jessica will adjust to a new world is like gambling that in shattering a vase, someone can re-glue it. At 2 1/2 years of age, Jessica must experience a death so complete, even an adult would have to struggle to survive. She'll experience the death of those she knows as her mom and dad, her home, all she has ever known. Are these the shattered pieces counseling will repair? The courts in Iowa and Michigan have ruled that this concern cannot affect their legal decision.

A child's integrity as a human being deserves respect in our courts. Jessica's intended adoptive family, with whom she has thrived the past 2 1/2 years, will turn to the U.S. Supreme Court. We must voice our outrage to Justices Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens. Let's not allow this to happen - not in the country that promises liberty and justice for all.

JOYCE BROWN\ BOONES MILL

by CNB