Last September, New Yorker Kelly Gunn went to court to argue that she should be considered a legal parent and gain parental rights to the son her ex-partner adopted in 2011. Last week, she lost her case, but she is now planning to appeal. It’s a complex story that was made possible after a different case led to a new, broader definition of “parent” in New York last fall.

Gunn was in a relationship with Circe Hamilton when they started planning an adoption. The couple split up before the adoption agency had identified Abush, the seven-year-old boy who later became Hamilton’s son. But Gunn still felt like Abush was her son too. She argued in court that her participation in the adoption planning, as well as her support and care after Abush arrived, should qualify her as a legal parent.

On the other side of the argument, Hamilton said that their joint adoption plan ended when they broke up. She claimed that Gunn’s role in her and her son’s life after the breakup was more like that of a close friend or maybe a godmother.

In Gay Rights Case, Woman to Appeal for Parental Rights to Ex-Partner’s Son https://t.co/k7lVw6Mn80 pic.twitter.com/4hdYdqxuWC

— Sara Buitrago (@x3aamphv) April 20, 2017

The case is possible thanks to a decision authored by recently deceased Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam. In a ruling last August, the New York State Court of Appeals decided that a person who is not related by blood to, or the legal adoptive parent of, a child can still ask for custody rights. The ruling came after a case in which another unmarried gay couple, named as Brooke S.B. and Elizabeth A. C.C. in court documents, had a child together.

Elizabeth was impregnated through artificial insemination in 2008. After giving birth to a boy, the three of them lived together as a family until 2010, when the women’s relationship ended. Three years after that, Elizabeth tried to sever Brooke’s ties with their son and didn’t let them have any contact. When Brooke sued for visitation rights, a lower court turned her down, as the law didn’t accept a non-adoptive caretaker with no biological ties to the child as a parent.

But the appeals court overturned the ruling on August 30. Judge Abdus-Salaam wrote that the legal definition of a parent was outdated and didn’t fit how many of us view “family” today. They considered the law especially unsustainable since New York started allowing same-sex marriage in 2011. The ruling stated:

Where a partner shows by clear and convincing evidence that the parties agreed to conceive a child and to raise the child together, the nonbiological, nonadoptive partner has standing to seek visitation and custody.

But the Gunn and Hamilton case is more complicated. The couple never married, and they did not conceive the child together. By the time they split up, they had only planned to adopt a child, but knew no other details. Gunn decided to seek custody because Hamilton was planning on moving to her home country of Great Britain with Abush.

One of Hamilton’s lawyers raised the issue that New York State’s new, expanded definition of parental rights could also be very scary for parents. It could open up arguments for trusted people close to the family to claim parental rights. But it doesn’t allow someone to gain those parental rights too easily–according to the judge in this case, Frank P. Nervo, Gunn didn’t provide sufficient evidence that she had played the role of a parent, and that was why she lost the case.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Woman Seeking Parental Rights to Ex-Partner’s Son Continues Legal Battle appeared first on Law Street.

South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed SB-149 on Friday, a law that protects private foster and adoption agencies from being sued for refusing to place children with an LGBT couple. While other states have similar laws, South Dakota is the first to enact one since the SCOTUS decision that legalized gay marriage in 2015.

According to Daugaard, the bill is intended to protect private organizations–largely faith-based–who act in the best interests of children, from being sued. But advocacy group argue that this bill is just discriminatory, harms children who could otherwise find loving homes, and would allow agencies to turn away couples of different faiths, people who have been divorced, and single parents.

According to Laura Dorso, vice president of the LGBT research and communications at the Center for American Progress, this measure will disproportionately affect LGBT couples and single mothers:

SB 149 allows religiously-affiliated foster care and adoption agencies to turn away qualified LGBT parents and single moms who simply want to start families and give young people a safe, loving home. Same-sex couples are six times as likely to foster than different-sex couples are, and this bill proves once again that opponents of equality are happy to put children at risk and deny them permanent homes to further their anti-LGBT agenda.

The ACLU of South Dakota pointed out in a statement that this law flies in the face of many organizations’ preferences:

South Dakota’s choice to do this now may contribute to some fears that in the Trump era, it will become open season on LGBT rights. Trump’s record on LGBT rights is wishy-washy at best, and there was talk of an executive order that would have overturned workplace protections for LGBT individuals that were instituted by the Obama Administration. While that executive order was reportedly squashed by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, concerns remain high. Although South Dakota’s law only applies at the state level, the battle for protections remains nationwide.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post South Dakota Passes Law Legalizing Discrimination Against LGBT Couples appeared first on Law Street.

Woo—it’s the day before Christmas Eve! RantCrush will take a short holiday break but we’ll be back again on December 27. Now go read today’s rants and then focus on all that yummy holiday food. We all deserve a little vacation after this crazy year. Happy Holidays! Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

Trump’s Messy Foray into Nuclear Weapons

Donald Trump tweeted yesterday that he seemingly wants the U.S. to expand and strengthen its nuclear powers. Nuclear experts were shocked, and rightfully so–no president has proposed a buildup in nuclear capabilities in a long time.

The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016

“Can a tweet start an arms race? This one may just have done that,” Joseph Cirincione from global security foundation Ploughshares Fund told NBC. In what seems to be the new routine for Trump, his spokespeople tried to explain and clarify what he meant after the fact.

Jason Miller said Trump meant that we need to prevent nuclear proliferation among terror groups, and strengthen American deterrent capability. Kellyanne Conway had a similar explanation last night on Rachel Maddow’s show when she said: “He is making the point this is about nuclear proliferation in the face of rogue nations and regimes that are stockpiling weapons.” Still…many people worry that the Trump gang’s explanations after the fact aren’t going to be good enough.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post RantCrush Top 5: December 23, 2016 appeared first on Law Street.

The story of Adam Crapser, 41, who was born in South Korea but adopted by an American couple at age three, has brought a lot of attention to the issue of international adoptees who lack American citizenship. Adam Crapser’s adoptive parents never filled out the necessary paperwork and now he faces deportation to a country he hasn’t seen since he was three, where he has no family or friends, and knows neither the language nor the culture. According to a Korean-American advocacy group, about 35,000 adoptees in the country lack U.S. citizenship, many times because the parents don’t know they need to fill out certain paperwork.

They grew up as American citizens, then learned that they weren’t @PriscillaStoneS @adam_crapser @NYAdoptEquality https://t.co/o8A9E1u7Fb

— Frank Ligtvoet (@frank_ligtvoet) September 3, 2016

Adam Crapser, who until recently lived in Vancouver, Washington, with his two daughters and pregnant wife, was adopted with his sister and taken to the U.S. His only belongings when he arrived were a Korean bible, a pair of rubber shoes, and a stuffed dog. But seven years later the parents, who had been abusive the whole time and punished the siblings by locking them in a dark basement, changed their minds and abandoned the kids. At age ten, Adam Crapser was separated from his sister and passed through several different foster homes.

By the time he was 12, Thomas and Dolly Crapser adopted him, but that didn’t make life easier. The couple also had two other adopted kids and several foster children, and all of them were abused. The parents allegedly taped the children’s mouths shut with duct tape, slammed their heads into door frames, and hit them. According to the AP, the couple was arrested on charges of physical and sexual abuse and rape in 1991, but Thomas only got 90 days in jail and Dolly three years of probation.

.@repzoelofgren what can be done to help #adamcrapser? https://t.co/3w4Hcx4MLr Appalling abuse by ICE after a lifetime of abuse.

— Peter Delevett (@peterdelevett) October 27, 2016

Before the Crapsers were criminally charged, they had kicked Adam Crapser out of their home before he had any chance to collect his belongings. In an attempt to retrieve his Korean bible and rubber shoes from when he was little, he broke into their house, which led to charges of burglary. Later in life he got in trouble with the law for unlawful possession of a firearm, assault after a fight with his roommate, and for calling a son he had with an ex-girlfriend despite a protection order.

“I made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I’m not proud of it,” Adam Crapser told the New York Times magazine. “I’ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way.”

As a sister and mother of international adoptees, this story breaks my heart and infuriates me in all kinds of ways. https://t.co/GgVYKIzr4D

— Jeanne Ryan (@Jeanne_Ryan) October 28, 2016

In 2000, Congress passed a law that gives automatic citizenship to adoptees, but only future adoptees or children under 18. Adam Crapser wasn’t covered but had to apply by himself. At the beginning of the year he came onto the immigration authorities’ radar when he applied for a green card and his previous convictions showed up. Another law, that was made stricter after 9/11, made him deportable because of his previous crimes. Even though he is now a responsible father of three, soon to be four, he was taken away from his family and put in an immigration detention center for nine months. During a hearing on Monday, he waived an appeal since he desperately wants to get out of there and be with his family.

“He will be deported as soon as Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes the necessary arrangements,” his attorney Lori Walls said to the AP. “Adam, his family, and advocates are heartbroken at the outcome.”

That someone who was taken from his home country at such a young age will now be sent off to a place completely alien to him and forced to split up from his wife and children, simply because of neglectful adoptive parents, has caused an uproar on social media. Many are pleading for the White House to step in.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Korean-American Man Who Was Adopted When He Was Three to Be Deported appeared first on Law Street.

For many couples, being unable to conceive naturally is a heartbreaking piece of news. Many turn to in vitro fertilization (IVF), which is successful about 30 percent of the time. However, when in vitro is successful, most couples have frozen embryos leftover and are asked what they would like to do with them. The majority of clinics offer four options: embryos can be donated to scientific stem cell research; they can be kept on ice for a several hundred dollar yearly fee; they can be destroyed by the clinic; or they can be donated to other families who struggle with infertility. This last option is called embryo adoption, or “snowflake” adoption. Embryo adoption is a largely unknown practice that has been gaining both notoriety and applause for its ability to help more couples go through the process of pregnancy and birth, giving them children who are not genetically related to their birth parents. Read on to learn about the background of frozen embryo adoption, the regulations on it, and what to expect moving forward.

What is frozen embryo adoption?

The process that leads to frozen embryo adoption usually begins with in vitro fertilization. It is often a practice for the doctor to harvest as many eggs as possible from the woman, thereby creating the maximum amount of fertilized eggs. A few of these embryos are implanted in the woman’s uterus, and the rest are frozen for later use. “Later use” refers to another round of IVF, either because the first round failed or because the couple wanted to expand their family some more. So what happens when a couple decides that their family is big enough? This is where embryo donation–and then adoption–sometimes comes into play.

The embryo donation and adoption process is pretty straight-forward–a couple who decides they want to donate their extra embryos after in vitro fertilization does so, and a couple (or a single woman, although some embryo adoption agencies only allow married couples to adopt frozen embryos) who wants to adopt embryos has them implanted into the woman’s uterus. Hopefully, the implantation takes. Then, a baby is born that is genetically the child of the donor couple.

What is responsible for the rise in frozen embryo adoptions?

The internet is rife with stories of couples who have struggled with infertility. It is a hardship that creates internet bonds between blogging wives and mothers, and fathers and husbands. Infertility is a deeply personal struggle, yet many people find that sharing that struggle online gains them the understanding that they can’t find in their offline life. In many stories of frozen embryo adoptions, this is how it starts. Maybe IFV was unsuccessful. Maybe the couple in question didn’t have the money for IFV at all. Maybe there is a woman who never found that perfect partner in life, and wanted to have a baby anyway. The reasons vary, but a fair number of the stories have similar beginnings–someone who is interested in an alternate path to having children sees an online posting, and then the embryo adoption process begins. A well-publicized example of this is the case of Glenda Lyons, Susan Lindeman, and Dana MacMillan, who all found each other on infertility message boards and are all raising children who are genetically Lyonses, although each family lives in a different part of the country. Their very unique story was documented in a 2009 article in Good Housekeeping.

There are of course many other ways for this process to occur as well. There are private companies that match donors with potential adoptive parents, such as BlessedWithinFertility. That process works much like a dating matchmaker, where the private company works as a consultant to arrange the perfect match between embryo donors and recipients. Clinics that offer embryo adoption have also been on the rise, building off of the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program, which began in 1997. The Department of Health and Human Services also has a grant program  to provide funding for clinics that offer embryo adoption as one of their services, and is working to increase public awareness.

It’s important to note that adoptive parents do not need to suffer from fertility issues in order to adopt frozen embryos–that is just the most common reason for deciding to pursue this particular route toward conceiving a child. There are very few guidelines surrounding embryo adoption in the United States, which means that the laws very from state to state. In most cases, anyone can adopt frozen embryos as long as they agree to the terms of the donor. In cases of private adoptions, the donors often set guidelines themselves for what they are looking for in adoptive parents; in the case of the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program, a written application and a home visit are necessary before applicants are paired with donors.

Who can donate a frozen embryo?

The market for frozen embryo donation is almost exclusively made up of couples who have successfully conceived through IFV and have embryos left over, and most embryo adoption websites appear to use rhetoric that is only addressed to couples. This makes the decision to donate remaining embryos an immensely personal decision that presumably many couples agonize over. The donation of embryos helps other couples realize their dream of going through pregnancy and childbirth. However, many couples struggle with the realization that there will be more of their biological children out there in the world whom they may never meet. Because of this emotional and personal factor in the embryo adoption process, many couples opt to choose their own embryo recipients, thereby alleviating some of their fears.

While most embryo adoption agencies target couples who have extra embryos left over, there is also the chance that a single woman successfully underwent IVF with a sperm donor and later will want to donate her frozen embryos as well. Since, in most cases of sperm donation, the sperm donor consents to giving up all parental rights, the woman would have the right to decide on her own what to do with the leftover embryos.

Frozen embryo donation is not the same thing as egg donation. Embryos are already fertilized eggs that have been frozen after the fertilization has been successful; egg donation is only the first part of that process, where eggs are harvested but have not yet been fertilized. While women are often actively recruited to donate eggs and are compensated generously for the time and effort, embryo donors are not compensated for their donation and do have other options for what to do with their leftover embryos.

Why is the frozen embryo adoption process controversial?

There are several reasons why embryo adoption is controversial in the United States, and they range from legal to religious in nature. One big reason is that there are no nationwide laws governing embryo adoption, which leaves the decision to each individual state. So far, ten states have enacted laws having to do with embryo adoption. For example, in Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, and Oklahoma, embryo donors have to give up all of their parental rights; in nine states, including Florida, Ohio, and Oklahoma, all decisions must be made in writing. As the topic gains more attention, more states will likely follow suit and regulate the process.

A second controversy falls in the camp of the ethical–if a donor couple decides to do a closed donation (meaning they would give up all right to contact with the recipient and the child), how would the families keep track of each other, and should they? These are just a couple of the reasons why this new process for helping families struggling with infertility is making some people (and lawmakers) scratch their heads in thoughtful silence. Would a federal law help regulate this extremely personal decision? Maybe, but a question asked by many others is whether the government should get involved in this process at all, since it is something that is based on a donor couple’s personal decision.

Are there any controversial supporters?

Many supporters of embryo adoption are devout Christians who oppose abortions. Much of this is based on their interpretation of what frozen embryos are. This makes the option of destroying frozen embryos akin to abortion in the minds of some outspoken supporters of embryo adoption, even if that is not scientifically accurate.

Are there people who oppose frozen embryo adoption?

Yes, there are people who don’t believe embryo adoption is a good idea, but many only balk at the rhetoric used.

To quote Dr. Owen Davis, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM):

You are putting [couples] through a procedure more akin to adopting an actual live child who has attained personhood, and this is really not the same.

In an article by Aljazeera, the ASRM’s ethics committee was quoted saying that the term “adoption” was “deceptive because it reinforces a conceptualization of the embryo as a fully entitled legal being.”

In other words, many who are pushing back against embryo adoptions are doing so because they don’t believe the terms being used to describe the procedure are accurate.

Conclusion

The growing public knowledge of the process of frozen embryo donation and adoption is bringing the procedure into the forefront of public opinion like it has never been before. Since it is still a relatively new procedure–not quite two decades old–there is still much room for growth when it comes to legislation surrounding embryo adoptions. Currently, there is no national standard, and some people find the procedure to be controversial. It is likely that this process will continue as it becomes more common and more laws are added to the books regarding embryo donation and adoption.

Resources

Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program: Snowflakes are Falling

WebMD: In Vitro Fertilization (IFV) and Infertility

Aljazeera America: Embryo Adoption Creates Babies – and Controversy

Good Housekeeping: Siblings of a Sort

Pacific Standard: The Frozen Children: The Rise – and Complications – of Embryo Adoption in the U.S.

NYU Langone Medical Center: Donating Your Eggs

National Embryo Donation Center: Donation – The Gift of Life

NPR: The New Frontier of Embryo ‘Adoption’

The New York Times: Industry’s Growth Leads to Leftover Embryos, and Painful Choices

Huffington Post: Evangelicals Embryo Adoption: Devout Christians Seek a Future for Thousands of Frozen Embryos

The Week: Inside the Rise of Embryo Adoption

USA Today: Couples Give Up Frozen Embryos for ‘Adoption’

Fusion: Enter the Wild West of the Embryo ‘Adoption’ Industry

Time: Get Used to Embryo Adoption

PeanutMom.com: The Embryo Donation Dating Game, Part 2

Legal Match: Sperm Donor Parental Rights and Obligations

Stockholm Law: Embryo Donation or Adoption – Which Laws and Policies Should Apply and Why?

Amanda Gernentz Hanson

Amanda Gernentz Hanson is a Minnesota native living in Austin, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hope College and a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Minnesota State University, where her final project discussed intellectual property issues in freelancing and blogging. Amanda is an instructional designer full time, a freelance writer part time, and a nerd always. Contact Amanda at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Frozen Embryo Donation and Adoption: A New Trend? appeared first on Law Street.

Early this fall, a Reuters piece on the practice of “rehoming” children in failed adoptions took the world by storm. The exposé was the product of an 18-month study by investigative journalist, Megan Twohey. Originally, a term for transferring the ownership of animals, “rehoming” is used to describe what happens when a family decides to give up a child they had adopted, for whatever reason. Usually the children that are moved around like this are from another country, were adopted as adolescents or teenagers, and have some behavioral problems.

Twohey was researching international adoption when she discovered the underground “rehoming” network in the United States that has developed as a result of the Internet. Families that were struggling with their children began to create Facebook, Yahoo, and other groups to talk about their issues, and often to find another place for their child to live. According to Twohey, these families are desperate, at a complete loss, and are unwilling to go through state-sanctioned procedures or social workers for fear of being forced to give up their other children, usually biological. Twohey explores these black markets, and describes the horror stories that many rehomed children go through. Her piece focuses somewhat on a woman named Nicole Eason, who had both of her biological children removed years ago, and then took in at least 5 rehomed children. She provided unsafe living conditions and may have sexually abused some of them. She also at one point brought a 5-year-old boy into a home with a man who would later be convicted of distributing child pornography. A feeling of desperation runs throughout Twohey’s piece—these parents turn to such abhorrent actions because they are at a complete loss. They did not realize that their children would be such a problem when they were adopted, sometimes because of misinformation from the adoption agency. At one point, Twohey anonymously quotes a parent who shows just how desperate she was, stating “I would have given her away to a serial killer, I was so desperate.”

The Reuters exposé led to a global firestorm . American adoptive parents and adoptees were horrified that families would do so. The nations from which many of these children come, such as Russia, were outraged and used such evidence to justify a continued adoption ban.

Now a new, equally horrifying story has broken. This week, Slate released a piece by Kathryn Joyce that focused on a girl named Hana Williams, adopted from Ethiopia. Hana Williams was adopted into a large fundamentalist family in Washington state. They believed in harsh discipline for their children, and in many ways were cut off from the world outside their religious community. Hana was systematically abused, excluded from the family, and no effort was made to understand her behavior. She died on May 11, 2011, after months of being abused and being left outside all night. Joyce describes how this is an extreme example of a story that is happening all over the United States. Adoption has become increasingly prevalent in the evangelical community; usually a choice for families after the mothers can no longer have more biological children of their own. One of families featured in Joyce’s story may have had up to 32 children, 24 of who were adopted.

The obvious questions are: how could these incidents have legally been allowed to happen?  How is it legal for parents to just give their children away on an online message bored? How is it legal for a family to adopt 24 children?

The answer is that adoption laws in this country are vague at best, and horridly outdated. Parents, be they adoptive or biological, are allowed to appoint guardians for their children. Within state lines, there are almost no constraints on this process. A family can sign a power of attorney document, declaring someone else as their child’s guardian. Such a document was traditionally used to declare a family member, or a friend, a guardian when needed. But as it becomes increasingly easier to connect with people through the Internet, this ability is being abused. People are giving their children to complete strangers. There are laws that make it more difficult to do this if it involves transfers over state lines: The Interstate Compact on Placement of Children requires notice if a child is rehomed from one state to another. But it’s rarely followed—if authorities are not notified, they have no reason to think a child may be being transferred. And there are no mechanisms in case to ensure adoptive families are checked up on after the adoption—after all at that point their adoptive children are viewed legally the same as their biologic children.

As for rules about how many children a family can have….there really are none. The decision about whether to allow an adoption is usually left to the agency. If an agency decides that a home is appropriate, and there’s no indication that there are any laws being broken or abuse being waged, a family is free to adopt as many children as they’d like, just as they are allowed to have as many biological children as they want. There are laws about how many children may be in a foster home, but when private agencies are appraising families, they are allowed to use their own discretion. There are of course, instances in which large families work well for children and end up as a nurturing and healthy household. Take this South Carolina family of 40 for example, where 33 children have been adopted and all seem to be successful, well-adjusted, and loved. There are the Duggars, probably the most famous large family in the US, who have 19 kids. While all are biological, they are a good example of a large, fundamentalist family doing well.  The issue at play here is that these large families that continually adopt allow for less individual attention to each child, which can be especially problematic for children who need specialized attention to deal with problems from their past. When a family is not able to do so, they run the risk of bad behavior, and may feel like they have no choice but to rehome their child or turn to abuse.

The stories in these two articles, as well as countless others that have come to light in the past few months depict children who are falling through the cracks. Children who should be protected by law, but our legal system is failing them. It’s hard to imagine that being adopted could lead to worse conditions than being in an orphanage, but it’s possible. Now that the US knows this is happening, it is our lawmakers’ responsibility to put a stop to it. Children should not be traded like animals. Children should not be placed into a home where they cannot possibly receive the attention that they deserve. These children deserve better, and it is the United States’ responsibility to make sure that they do receive better.

—

Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [madamepsychosis via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post You Don’t Hear About This Side of Adoption appeared first on Law Street.

On April 11, 2007 in Pleasant Grove, UT, a woman named Michele MacNeill was pronounced dead of cardiovascular disease. MacNeill’s death came as a complete shock to her family. A former beauty queen who had just undergone a facelift procedure, MacNeill was a happy mother of eight, a devout Mormon, and married to a prominent Utah physician named Dr. Martin MacNeill.

For the MacNeill family, the years that followed were marred by lies, deceit, accusations, and tragedy. On Tuesday, October 15, Dr. Martin MacNeill’s murder trial will begin.

The story behind the MacNeill family and Michele MacNeill’s death is convoluted at best. According to different family members, there are many conflicting facts about what happened that day in the MacNeills’ Utah home.

Michele MacNeill had undergone a facelift surgery on April 3rd, 2007. She returned home on April 4th, and her daughter Alexis Somers , at the time a med-school student, stayed at home to tend to her mother. The morning after her mother returned home from the hospital, Alexis found her unresponsive in bed. According to Alexis, her father Martin stated that he might have overmedicated his wife.

Alexis’s story continues with a conversation with her mother; she testified in a pretrial hearing that Michele stated, “If anything happens to me, make sure it wasn’t your dad.” On April 11th, after Alexis returned to medical school, her mother passed away fully clothed in a bathtub in their home. Michele’s then six-year-old daughter Ada found her later that morning.

The coroner at first ruled her death as the result of a cardiac condition. However her children, particularly Alexis and her sister Rachel, were convinced that their father had something to do with their mother’s sudden passing. Finally in 2010, medical examiners took another look at the evidence and discovered that there was a possibly fatal combination of medications in Michele’s system. According to a CNN interview with Todd Grey, chief medical examiner of the Utah Sate Medical Examiner’s Office none of these medications were deadly on their own, but in combination they could have led to a cardiac death.

The MacNeills had one son, named Damian, who unfortunately committed suicide in 2010. However his girlfriend at the time, a woman named Eileen Hang, claims that Martin asked her to discard all of his wife’s medications after she died.

Martin tells a drastically different story that has been rife with contradictions. He has made numerous opposing statements to law enforcement, family, and friends. He claims to have an alibi, but it is largely unsubstantiated. His motive is, of course, at issue. The motive the prosecution will be presenting is of a philandering husband who fell in love with another woman named Gypsy Willis.

Gypsy Willis is being lauded as the prosecution’s star witness.  She had begun an affair with Martin in April 2004. From there, the story gets stranger. In the days leading up to Michele’s death, she exchanged many text messages with Martin. A week after Michele’s death, Gypsy moved in with the family to work as a nanny. She started pretending to be Martin’s wife and introduced her self as Jillian Giselle MacNeill. She pleaded guilty to identity fraud and related charges in 2011.

There are countless other confusing aspects of the story. The MacNeills had four biological children—Rachel, Alexis, Vanessa, and Damian—and then adopted four children from Ukraine. However the locations of three of these four children are essentially unknown—according to family members they may have been sent back to Ukraine. According to Alexis, before the facelift and subsequent death of Michele, Martin said he “no longer loved Michele and didn’t want their adopted daughters anymore.” Recently it has come out that the youngest, Ada, supposedly adopted, was actually Vanessa’s daughter and Michele’s biological granddaughter.

Since their mother’s death, Rachel and Alexis, along with the help of their aunt Linda, have crusaded against their father to face justice for what they believe was a murder. They have created two sites: and http://martinmacneill.info/ to attempt to inform the public about her death and his supposed involvement.

Currently, pretrial motions have been ruled upon, and jury selection will begin tomorrow. The facts will make for an interesting trial; any case so riddled with contradictions will be hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. It also comes a time when high profile cases have the ability to take the nation by storm. While the MacNeill case has not been as publicized as the Trayvon Martin or Casey Anthony cases, it has potential to become a media event. It will pitch a father against his daughters, a mistress against her former lover, and the truth against lies.

[CNN]

—

Featured image courtesy of [Steve Smith via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Stranger Than Fiction: The Martin & Michele MacNeill Case appeared first on Law Street.

Don’t get pregnant in Nebraska, ladies. Back in January 2011, Republican State Senator Lydia Brasch introduced legislative bill 690. The bill mandated that if a woman under the age of 18 wanted to abort a pregnancy, she must receive written permission from a parent or guardian. Otherwise, no abortion procedure for you, sweetheart. Good luck with that!

LB 690 was a wild success in the Nebraska legislature. It passed by a landslide in May 2011, and was signed into law the very same day. These kinds of bills are called “parental consent” bills by the anti-abortion lobby. But for those of us who believe in Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose?

This is just a straight-up, anti-abortion bill.

Why? After all, abortion is still legal in Nebraska, even after LB 690’s passage. No big deal, right? Wrong. Anonymous 5, a 16-year-old Nebraskan ward of the state who was denied her right to an abortion this week, can personally tell you that it’s a very, very big deal.

At a hearing back in July, Anonymous 5’s parents were stripped of their parental rights because they had been abusive and neglectful of their three children. Anonymous 5 and her two younger siblings were placed in foster care, under the legal protection of the state. At this same hearing, Anonymous 5 informed the judge that she was 10 weeks pregnant, and wanted to get an abortion.

She was, to put it lightly, in a pickle. She needed written parental consent, but legally, she no longer had any parents. What to do? Her only option was to ask a judge for permission to circumvent LB 690—something young girls are supposed to be allowed to do, in cases of medical emergency or abuse.

But that really didn’t work out for her. This week, the Nebraska court made a final decision on her abortion request, ruling that she had not sufficiently proved that she had been a victim of abuse, and—most importantly—she had not proved herself to be mature enough to decide that she wanted an abortion.

That’s right, folks. The Nebraska court ruled that a 16-year-old girl was not mature enough to have an abortion. But, she’s mature enough to become a mother!

Because that makes a lot of sense.

Especially considering that Anonymous 5 had some really good reasons for not wanting to give birth to a child. Besides the obvious factors—she’s a high school student without the financial or emotional resources to be, in her words, the kind of “mom [she] would like to be right now”—a very religious foster family is currently housing her and her two young siblings. Anonymous 5 expressed concern that she would lose her foster placement if her foster parents found out about the pregnancy.

Meaning that, in this case, adoption is not a viable option. The mere act of carrying this child to term could cause Anonymous 5 and her siblings to wind up homeless. And haven’t they already been through enough, after growing up in an abusive, neglectful household?

You’d think so, but the Nebraska judge didn’t agree. He denied Anonymous 5 the right to make this deeply personal choice by herself, and instead, decided for her, ruling that she would not be allowed to receive an abortion in the state of Nebraska.

So, what does this mean for LB 690, and other parental consent bills like it?

It means that they have the power to deny young women access to abortions. That’s a really big problem. But perhaps more importantly, these bills take the right of bodily decision-making away from young women, and hand it over to someone else.

And that’s just not OK. Every person, regardless of gender, needs to be able to choose what happens to his or her (or zir!) body. How would you like it if someone else had the power to decide what hairstyle you should wear, or how provocative your clothes should be, or what you could eat, or when you could sleep?

You’d hate it. You’d get angry and frustrated. You’d feel powerless. And these feelings would be in response to relatively trivial kinds of control.

I mean, seriously, everyone freaked out when Mayor Bloomberg tried to control how big our sodas could be.

So, can you imagine how powerless you’d feel if someone else forced you to grow a child inside your abdomen for nine months, after which, you’d have to literally tear your body apart trying to expel it? And then, you’d either have to raise it for the next 18 years, or make the heart wrenching decision to hand that responsibility off to someone else?

That’s not trivial. That’s a life-altering kind of control. It’s too important to be placed in someone else’s hands.

Walter White, for the win.

Only the person who’s pregnant can make that call. It’s a deeply personal decision, and one that she’ll have to live with forever. Simply put, women need to be in control of their own bodies.

And the fact that, in 2013, this concept still hasn’t sunken in is horrifying. How far have we really come from the days when women’s bodies were bought and sold by men through marriage—when women were nothing more than property?

Not far, apparently, when a man in Nebraska has the power to decide what’s going to happen inside of Anonymous 5’s body.

So, whaddya say, folks? Can we stop controlling and policing women’s bodies, so that no one else ever has to go through what Anonymous 5 did this week?

I really hope so.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Rudy Eng via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post If You Got Mad About the Big Gulp Ban, Get Mad About This appeared first on Law Street.