I am on a tear right now.  I realize on a rational level that justice is something that is not dispensed equally; that life isn't fair; that sometimes bad things happen to people who don't deserve it and from time to time the the good die young.  However, knowing that is so, doesn't mean I have to like it.

  Take the great state of Indiana for instance.  The lofty goal of the justice system in Indiana is that biological families should be united.  That flesh and blood belongs with flesh and blood.  In the many years that I have lived here there have been too many instances in which a child has been taken from a foster home or family member where the aforementioned child lived a comfortable and secure life to be reunited with his or her birth parent.  The result of the placement back with a parent (from whom the child wasn originally taken by the state or previously relinquished by the parent) was that the child was abused by his or her flesh and blood or in several notorious instances, one not so long ago in my own community; murdered by the parent, step parent, significant other, funny  uncle etc. of the parent with whom the child was placed.

 The result of these sensational cases are that the state rushes to hire more child protective service workers to investigate and stay on top of situations that could turn out badly only to cut said workers when the economics didn't lend themselves to protecting children. (Has economics ever lent itself to protecting children?  Who owns a pair of Nike shoes? Don't all raise your hands at once now.) And of course who of us wants to pay taxes to finance all those investigations-big government is bad. Right?

  I have a good friend who has always wanted children but for various medical reasons can't have them.  She is an outstanding auntie to her neices and nephews, but being an auntie isn't the same as having your own child.  She and her husband tried fostering.  They were great foster parents and during the course of their time as foster parents came to love a brother and a sister who had been taken from a negligent mother.  The first duty of the court remember, is to attempt to educate and rehabilitate the parent and reunite the family.  This particular brother and sister were taken out of my friend's home and sent back to their re-educated and rehabilitated parent two different times, each time to be returned to their foster mom and dad within a few weeks of going home.  They came back to their foster home each time lice and flea infested, dirty and with out the clothing or toys that had been sent home with them.  The third time they came back my friend and her husband were assured that the court was going to begin proceedings to discontinue parental rights and that if my friend and her husband were agreeable, they could have the opportunity to adopt these children.  My friend was ecstatic she had come to love these two-finally she was going to have children of her own.  The preliminary paperwork for adoption was drawn up.  Three months later the birth mother convinced the court that she should be allowed yet another chance to prove that she was a fit mother.  The court went for it.  The children were returned once again, leaving my friend and her husband heart broken.

 Meantime, they had been contacting attorneys about private adoptions. Last fall, four years after losing the two children they had orignally fostered and tried to adopt they were informed that an unwed pregnant teenage girl in a town 60 miles away had contacted their attorney about giving up her baby when it was born as she had little education, was still dependent on her own parents and did not feel she could provide for a child.  Her parents supported her in her decision as the economy had hit them hard and they could barely afford to keep food on their own table much less take on another dependant.

 All went well. My friend and her husband traveled to ultra sound and doctors appointments.  There were counseling sessions to be sure all were on board with the adoption.  Two weeks ago the birth mother delivered a beautful baby boy who she relinquished as promised to his new adoptive parents. 

 This past weekend my friend and her husband learned that the grandmother of the birth mother had contacted the baby's father- a teenager also who throughout the pregnancy had little or no interest in his impending fatherhood.  All of a sudden, at the urging of the birth mother's grandmother he is very interested in fatherhood. And because he never relinquished his parental rights has a good shot at getting his baby back. Why?  What can a seventeen year old high school drop out with a blossoming career as a counter boy at McDonalds give a baby? At least at this phase of his life.  In Indiana it really doesn't matter because flesh and blood needs to be united.  To hell with the baby.

 So my friend now has to face a heartwrenching decision.  Does she fight for this baby and hope that financially she can outlast this all of a sudden interested daddy and the birth mother's grandmother? Does she take the risk that she will lose this child two, three years down the road when he has bonded to her and her husband as the only parents he has ever known? Or does she just cut bait and give him up now?

 So to you right to lifers out there...you know what I would like to see from you?  I would like to see a little less action at abortion clinics and a little more action in counseling centers for unwed mothers.  I would like you to stop worry about saving every embryo and begin saving the babies and children that are already here.  I would like to see you convince unwed, young and uneducated parents that maybe a baby isn't a puppy to be passed back and forth like some kind of a new toy.  Pro life means to be supportive of life that is already here, doesn't it?

 So how about this, how about you folks who are pro-life and folks like me that are for a woman's right to choose, get together and find some common ground-such as that we want to love and protect our children period.  That we are willing to be all over our legislators like a cheap suit to change the laws so that children are REALLY protected.  Because having a pair of mammaries doesn't make you a good mother.  The ability to gestate and give birth doesn't mean you have a clue about what is good for your child, or even yourself for that matter.

Being a mother I can't imagine giving up one of my children.  I know how I felt about them from the day they were born.  Sticking a hot poker in my eye sounds much more agreeable.  I can only imagine what a gut wrenching decison it must be to give one's child up. But it is also a courageous decision.  And states and those of us who care about children and yes, even grandmothers need to be supportive as to what is best for the child.   I know, that's a pretty grown up concept.  Today I don't feel that there are too many grown ups out there.