The Michigan Supreme Court will hear a challenge that could upend a law that allows birth parents to anonymously drop off newborns at a hospital, shelter, fire department, or other safe space.

The case deals with a complex set of facts that revolve around a couple’s troubled relationship, divorce and her decision to surrender the infant for adoption without naming her ex-husband as the father.

Much of the confusion stems from the fact that there were two separate cases dealing with the divorce and custody that proceeded simultaneously in two counties. The result was a court in Ottawa County granting custody to the ex-husband as a judge in Kalamazoo County terminated his parental rights.

That was a surprise to Peter Kruithoff, the ex-husband, who did not find out his parental rights had been terminated until after the child had been placed with a family.

“We’re all entitled to due process and having a child and raising a child is a fundamental constitutional right,” said his attorney, Michael Villar.

When I told my sister Livia, a teacher in Craiova, that I was coming home at the beginning of March, she replied that I had chosen the most unfortunate moment possible. "We have notice to vacate the cellars in the block for shelter, in case of attack. Stay there because you're fine!", she closed the conversation. She thought I was listening to her.

Three days later, we land at the airport in Otopeni, at midnight. Ioana, a neighbor, was waiting for me. "Hey, you chose when to come!", he said to me instead of "You're welcome", on the way to the parking lot.

Then, in the morning , Ioana 's mother, who lives upstairs in my Victorian house on Pia ?a Roman? , called me to the window. A gesture that dates from the time when I lived there more than twenty years ago , from the time when I was a special reporter at the National newspaper and then, at Antena 1 , for the "Prezentul Simplu" show. Usually, my upstairs neighbor made a comment about a broadcast report, or about what else she had read written by me. Now, in a whisper , he said to me, "Hey, Dana, don't you know what's going on here?"

And I knew. "Well that's why I came. Let me lend a helping hand and document what is happening. I got angry when some colleagues from the press here told me that they don't think the war is real, that the images broadcast by television are not from the scene . That they are rigged. I want to get involved.”

A few hours later, I set up with Ioana at the Help Center for Refugees at the North Station. "Just see how crowded it is," said Ioana, juggling among the cars as I closed my eyes in fear . We signed up for volunteers, they gave us a yellow jacket, and five minutes later, they sent us on our first mission. "A train with refugees is coming . Go to the platform and identify the refugees, help them with their luggage, and bringthey are here, at the Center", someone from the guard instructed us. We looked at each other and took her to the platform. "But aren't they training us?" asked Ioana, in her somewhat lazy but resonant voice. "I could see," I told him. "What would be so hard?" I answered, not believing what I was saying either.

Just 3,559 children were placed for adoption with families living in India and abroad in 2020-21

In the summer of 2019, Vinay Raj* and his wife Kanika gathered their family and friends to announce the most important decision they had made in their eight years of marriage: they were going to adopt a baby girl. They had registered on the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) website in April that year, and the home survey report was approved in a month. The couple, based in New Delhi , was told they could take the baby home in a year. The prospect of adopting a baby allayed the trauma of the miscarriage Kanika had just suffered. The couple pulled out all the stops: “We bought little blankets and baby clothes, soft toys and books,” says Vinay.

And then began the wait. It’s been three years now, and CARA has not yet referred a child to the couple. “We have almost given up hope,” says Vinay. “It has been emotionally exhausting.” To make matters worse, there has been no word from the adoption authority either. “No one picks up the phone, and when we meet them they blame the pandemic for the delay. But now they have no excuse,” he says. So interminable has been the process and so great the emotional toll that Vinay and Kanika have changed their mind about adopting a second child.

For Bhuwaneshwari Chandrashekharan, a lecturer in Kuwait, the endless wait for adoption meant putting the brakes on a promising career shift. She had registered with CARA in February 2019, and expected to wait months, not years. Two years ago, Bhuwaneshwari, who specialises in organic chemistry, applied for a Ph.D in Canada, and made plans to eventually move to that country. “But I’ve had no choice but to stay on in Kuwait; this is the address with which I have registered with CARA,” she says. The wait has been tough. “I don’t know who to turn to. I feel blindfolded,” says Bhuwaneshwari, who continues to attend pre-adoption workshops in anticipation of bringing a baby home.

Behind the numbers

NEW DELHI: Citing data shared by the ministry of women and child development that put the number of prospective adoptive parents waiting to adopt at around 26,000 whereas the children available in the pool at just about 2,400, a parliamentary panel has recommended that the adoption process in the country be simplified. They called for special focus on special children waiting to be adopted.

In its report tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, the 31 member parliamentary standing committee on education, women, children, youth and sports chaired by BJP member Vinay P Sahasrabuddhe has stressed upon the need for a close relook at the various regulations guiding the procedure of adoption.

According to the report, the WCD ministry at the time of deposition before the committee shared that the number of prospective adoptive parents registered was 26,000 but the number of children who were legally free for adoption was 2,400 and out of these 900 were children with special needs. It was also submitted that various steps have been taken to ease the mechanism of adoption including amendments in JJ Act to give the power to issue adoption order to district magistrates and also under Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956.

Adoption provides a win-win situation to the child as well as the new parents. The government should adopt a simple but rigorous process to promote this socially progressive trend.

The ministry submitted that Hindu adoption (under HAMA) which happens directly between relatives does not get to CARA (Central Adoption Resource Authority) and thus data regarding such adoptions is not available. CARA is a statutory body which functions as the nodal body for adoption of Indian children and is mandated to monitor and regulate in-country and inter-country adoptions.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has published the first tranche of written evidence it has received as part of its inquiry into the adoption of children of unmarried women between 1949 and 1976. The submissions include a large number of personal testimonies from mothers who were separated from their children, and people who were separated from their mothers as babies.

Inquiry: The right to family life: adoption of children of unmarried women 1949-1976

Joint Committee Human Rights

The testimonies reveal the societal and institutional pressures that led to unmarried mothers feeling they had no choice but for their baby to be adopted, and in many cases being given no option at all. They reveal a pervasive sense of shame and judgement towards unmarried mothers that led to pregnant women and girls being hidden or sent away and an air of secrecy for many years afterwards. This extended to the standard of treatment experienced during and after the birth, and has left a lasting impact. People who were adopted described the legacy of not knowing their family history, particularly for health issues.

A central aim of the inquiry is to listen to those affected by adoption practices during this time. As part of this the Joint Committee is holding a round-table event where members of the public can relate their experiences. Further information about how to take part can be found here.

SAN FRANCISCO — Angie Aquino-Sales was at work at a medical device company in the East Bay on the morning of March 2, 2020, when she got the news that her 20-year-old son, Jaxon Sales, was dead. She collapsed on the floor and started screaming, then composed herself enough to call her husband, Jim. They raced home. More than 30 relatives gathered over the course of the day, filled with grief and questions.

In the two years since, the Sales family has been searching for answers about what happened to Jaxon. In his official report, Michael Suchovicki, an investigator with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, ruled Jaxon’s death a “probable drug-related overdose.” The toxicology report stated that gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), a substance commonly known as a date rape drug but sometimes used recreationally, was in Jaxon’s system. In a statement to BuzzFeed News, the San Francisco Police Department said that it “conducted an investigation and did not find evidence of foul play.” Police ruled Jaxon’s death as accidental and closed the case.

So Angie, Jim, and other relatives have dug into the matter on their own, seeking clarity that they say authorities have been unable to provide. Jaxon was found dead in a San Francisco luxury high-rise apartment of a 41-year-old white man who had hosted a gathering the night before. In an officer’s bodycam footage at the scene, the man tells police that Jaxon had spent the night, but when the man began getting ready for work around 7:30 a.m., Jaxon wasn’t breathing, so he called 911. The man, who didn’t respond to an interview request for this story, says he didn’t see Jaxon consume any intoxicants other than a vape pen, according to the footage. Jaxon’s friends told BuzzFeed News that they had never known him to take GHB.

Angie said that when she contacted the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (SF OCME) to ask how Jaxon’s death could be ruled accidental, an assistant medical examiner told her, “The gay community uses GHB.” Jaxon’s uncle Phil Aquino and cousin Izzy Aquino said that when they went to the medical examiner’s office to retrieve his belongings, another member of the medical examiner’s office told them, “The community parties, and it often results in overdoses.”

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, David Serrano Sewell, chief operating officer of the medical examiner's office, described the investigation as "thorough" and "consistent with national standards and industry best practices," and said that the agency "does not tolerate discrimination in our office or our work."

While being taken into these adoption agencies and CCIs can mean foster care for some, it is the first step on the road to adoption and a new lease of life for others.

VISAKHAPATNAM: With gloomy eyes, peeking from behind the rusted window bars of a cramped children’s home, Kyathi, 12, can’t recall much of her early years. All she knows is that she was found on a bench at a crowded railway station when she was just five months old and was taken to the children’s home in Visakhapatnam. Since then, the children’s home has been a band-aid help on her bullet wound. “I sometimes feel it would have been a bit comforting had my parents left any memory of theirs with me,” says a shy Kyathi (name changed).

Carrying a sense of loss, fear of being left out, and, a pain too overwhelming at times in her tender heart, Kyathi is one among 360-odd orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children Andhra Pradesh is currently home to, across 14 Specialised Adoption Agencies and all Child Care Institutions (CCI) under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) of the Women Development and Child Welfare (WDCW) Department. Kyathi’s story is the picture that almost all adoption agencies and child care institutions present.

Amid the calm yet dreary milieu of orphanages that bustle only on special occasions, children yearn for parental warmth. Behind their innocent smiles and awkward silence are bottled up emotions. An hour of interaction with kids in an orphanage offers a glimpse into their daily routine, a part of which usually looks like this: they study with none to guide them; they eat, with no say in what they want to have; they go to bed, with no one to tell them bedtime stories.

While being taken into these adoption agencies and CCIs can mean foster care for some, it is the first step on the road to adoption and a new lease of life for others. On the other side are couples, who have long been waiting to be blessed with a child, but for most of whom adoption is the last resort, and for which, the reasons are manifold.

The National Board of Appeal's four notes on a study of the Danish adoption agency from Colombia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka from the Minister of Social Affairs and the Elderly

The National Board of Appeal has quietly given birth to their investigation, which does not surprisingly release Denmark from liability in relation to the illegalities they can not deny have occurred in adoptions from the 4 countries they have chosen to investigate.

It is sad to read that in all 4 statements they generally use terms such as "in most cases" or "In several cases". Nevertheless, it was concluded that no illegalities could be detected.

It is predictable that the responsibility is imposed on the donor countries' "unregulated" conditions and not the pressure the adoption agencies imposed on the donor countries, just as it is directly problematic that the economic conditions including the widespread use of donations (which the last revision of the Adoption Act reintroduced) are not proven to be the vast majority of illegalities.

The Adoption Policy Forum can conclude:

KYIV, March 16 (Reuters) - Ukrainian nurse Oksana Martynenko and her colleagues have 21 babies to look after at a makeshift clinic in a residential basement on the outskirts of Kyiv - all of them surrogates whose parents cannot come to collect them because of the war.

All the while she has her own family to worry about. Her children are in the region around Sumy, a city some 200 miles (320 km) east of the capital which has been bombarded by Russian forces.

It is too dangerous for Martynenko to try to reach them, so they are living with their grandmother.

"We haven't been able to get home since Feb. 24," she told Reuters on Tuesday, as she changed one of the baby's diapers.

"I am from Sumy region, but I cannot go there. I have children at home ... They (the Russians) started to bombard our town yesterday. We wait for news every day about what is happening there ... But we cannot leave these babies."

Former Washington state Rep. Matt Shea, the far-right Republican who was found by a House-commissioned investigation to have planned and participated in domestic terrorism, is in a small town in Poland with more than 60 Ukrainian children, trying to facilitate their adoption in America.

Shea has said his group helped rescue 62 children and their two adult caregivers from an orphanage in Mariupol, the city in southeastern Ukraine that has been bombarded by Russian forces.

But international agencies say, with the chaos and confusion of war, now is not an appropriate time for international adoptions from Ukraine. And Shea’s presence, and the lack of information surrounding the American group he’s with, has raised concerns among some residents of Kazimierz Dolny, the small Polish town where the children are staying at a hotel-guesthouse.

“I asked him many times, ‘What are you going to do with these children?’ and he told me that it’s not my business,'” Weronika Ziarnicka, an aide to the mayor of Kazimierz Dolny, said of Shea. “I got the feeling in my gut that something’s wrong with this guy; he didn’t want to tell me his last name.”

Shea, who rarely speaks to mainstream media, did not respond to requests for comment.