adoptions

The Los Angeles Times has a clearly written summary of the tangled history of the little Cherokee girl who has been the subject of a cross-state, cross-sovereign nation custody dispute between her biological American Indian father and her adoptive white parents. The post begins: "Was justice served Monday when a little girl called Veronica was taken from her biological father, a Cherokee, and returned to the white South Carolina couple who had begun to adopt her at birth four years ago? This is one of those heartbreaking stories that periodically makes headlines, sending a shiver down the spines of adoptive parents and enraging Native Americans whose children had been ripped away from them so often that a federal law was passed in 1978 to put safeguards in place."