As seen on TV
During the last couple of weeks Portuguese TVs have been capitalizing on a child custody case.
As portrayed by the media the story goes:
A Portuguese guy had an affair with a Brazilian immigrant and from that liaison a little girl was born. The biological father asked for a paternity test and in spite of the positive result didn’t care about the little girl for five years now.
The mother gave the little girl for a nice couple to adopt, although the adoption legal process was still not over (allegedly, Portuguese courts have been delaying the process for more than for years).
A couple of months ago the biological father filed a custody process and the court ordered the child to be given to her biological father.
The adoptive parents refused to yield the child, the adoptive mother disappeared with the girl and the adoptive father got arrested for kidnapping, as a result of going against the court order.
As they became aware of this case thousands of people felt outraged and thus filed a habeas corpus petition to get the adoptive father released. This habeas corpus is historical: the first one in our country signed by about 10000 petitioners.
People who want the little girl to stay with her adoptive family and who claim that giving custody to her biological father will cause her a huge trauma.
Pretty simple and straight forward although sad a story, wouldn’t you say?
That good for nothing biological father never gave a dam about the girl and now files a suit just to try and get some money in a settlement (main theory among the common citizen).
As always there are two sides to this story…
Some journalists didn’t buy the tale and went digging for proof. Our courts may be slow at times, but one thing you must credit them with: all records are kept.
Those journalists found out that as soon as the DNA results were known the father filed a custody suit, that means almost five years ago instead of a couple of months ago.
It took the court two and a half years to grant custody to the biological father, nevertheless the adoptive family refused to return the baby and moved. During the last few years the biological father has made every effort to track that family and get his daughter, however only once did he manage to find them and the adoptive family refused to let go of the girl and moved again.
This second version of the story is pretty much the same as the one in the only official version issued by the court that ordered the adoptive father’s arrest.
Manipulated by the media, public opinion still stands on the side of the adoptive family.
So, how does the media come out of it all? TVs distorted reality and manipulated gullible viewers. At the same time a handful of magazine reporters dug out the truth and made it public.
Regardless of everything else, the little girl now looks at the adoptive parents as her real family… whatever the legal outcome of this mess, who can rightfully say what is best for the girl? The adoptive parents show no respect for the law, but they seem to love the little girl and do in fact have a better economical situation to raise the infant.
The biological father and his wife have another kid, sixteen years old boy, and although strangers to the little girl seem to be good parents.
5 comments:
Wow, thatis a complicated issue.
My take is that is neither biological parent's wanted the responsibility, once they gave that up, then the couple who took her in should be her parents. They showed the love the girl needed that her bio parents did not.
Most likely, here in the US the biological father and adoptive family would share custody with social workers facilitating the introduction of biological father with the daughter.There was a very famous case of a surrogate mother who refused to give up the baby once it was born. In this case, the surrogate mother was impregnated by invitro fertilization by the adoptive father. The contract stated that she would carry the baby to term and then turn over the baby, allowing the biological father and his wife to legally adopt the child. The surrogate mother, however, became very depressed as the pregnancy progressed at the thought of giving up the child growing within her. After the little girl was born, the biological father and his wife took the baby home. Within days, the surrogate mother was frantic and suicidal, so against their better judgement, they let her spend a couple days with the baby. Of course, when they came to get the baby, the surrogate mother would not give her up and eventually ran with the baby, causing a major media uproar. Eventually the courts came to an agreement of shared custody but not before a LOT of trauma to everyone involved. When you see cases like this, it really makes you feel for the poor child caught in the middle. Sometimes adults can be so selfish!
That's so sad. I believe the right thing to do, as Bunnyjo mentioned, is to introduce the father into the little girl's life. Unfortunately these things happen all the time. In Canada there are Fathers Rights groups for men going through this.
If we ever waited on custody laws here nothing would happen.
Why can't they just share the child so she has everybody to love her? To idealistic? No, it happens, I've seen it here.
Shees, how did I get called 'sapodilla' instead of GG?
Post a Comment