I am not surprised that sooner or later, even the Missionaries of Charity would get caught up in India’s black market for babies. A nun and an employee at one of their centers have been arrested for baby trafficking. While only one incident is currently under prosecution, there are likely more incidents to be uncovered and most likely she had other nuns covering for her, so I would not be surprised if this scandal blows up into a major scandal.
Ironically, the Missionaries of Charities support the very draconian adoption laws that lead people to use the black market to purchase babies. Their own political viewpoint on this matter has come back to haunt them.
The Missionaries of Charities should consider supporting the liberalization of adoption laws, a move that would help reduce the black market in babies.
The law they support does not permit single women and unmarried women to adopt, thus pushing them into the black market, as well as keeping a surplus of babies that can be profitably sold on the black market. In that aspect, the Missionaries of Charities political position is both unhelpful and damaging.
I agree with that position. An agency that claims to represent Catholic values should actually represent them, & if the position of the oldest church is the best place for children is with a married couple with husband & wife, that is where children can be placed.
Why are single women even attempting to adopt babies, whose care is a full time responsibility? Or attempting to adopt through church run agencies, which stress marriage & family for the upbringing of children?
Why not a state run, secular agency? Possibly an older, harder to place child, or foster parenting?
Maybe they have the type of income that can afford to hire help raising the child, and they don’t want the burden of having to deal with a male in the child-raising process? Just a thought.
Not every woman, who wants to be a mother, also wants to have a relationship with a man. It’s not every woman’s cup of tea.
What a horrible idea, if that’s the idea some single women have, that a man isn’t a necessary part of raising a child. Or that they just don’t want one.
Are they going to teach a boy child he isn’t necessary as a husband or hands on father? Or a girl child that men who express interest in her are just sugar daddies & baby daddies? That hired help can be an acceptable substitute?
I’m with the Sisters on this one. Single women adopting older, harder to place children, or foster parenting is noble. These are children who might not otherwise be placed.
Not every woman wants a relationship with a man. Luckily there are options.
Boys need to be taught that they are not necessary for women. If they want a relationship with a woman they need to step up their game and show women why they are a valuable addition to their lives.
The reverse is also true. Just because you’re a woman, you aren’t critical to a man’s well-being.
We choose who we have as part of our lives. Most of us should choose wiser than we do.
Interesting no one has said anything on any sections of the Forum about the definitely not religious Chinese government putting restrictions on potential adoptive individuals & families.
Single men & women are no longer considered as prospective adoptive parents, & while they’re pretty flexible about age—IIRC 52 is the maximum age for adoption—life threatening health conditions may get prospective adoptive parents denied. Obesity is considered such a problem, & such individuals denied.
Why is it when secularists & atheists want to do something, that’s OK? But when religious people want to do it—particularly Christians—it’s not?
I also find it disturbing that so much of what pertains to the well being of children is, to some, strictly about what women want.
Some women want to have their cake & eat it too, they want children but no father involved in their lives.
What about what the children may want & what may be more beneficial to them—to have both a mother and father?
Yes, there are those children who will be harder to place & it’s better with a single woman or man or gay/lesbian couple than to be continuously bounced from one home to another.
But babies? Again I find it disturbing in American society if a single woman wants a baby, everyone is supposed to acquiesce, from adoption agencies under church auspices to fertility clinic doctors, who sometimes have religious objections of their own to helping single women become pregnant
Far too many people focus on what the adult wants rather than what’s best for the child.
Study after study shows that the best paradigm for a child’s success is when both the mother AND the father are raising the child – in the same household. (Not via custody swapping.)
When we focus on what the individual parent wants (vis a vis having a child) we make the child a commodity, and its best interest becomes secondary (if not tertiary) to other concerns.
I agree with you, Janet, that governance that aims for putting children in two-parent homes (more specifically, two parents of opposite sex) is not draconian at all, but rather is looking out for the best interest of the child – which should be a government’s concern given that children are the future of any society.
