Why are we saving Veronica? Veronica’s rights were ignored in December of 2011, when she was taken from her adopted family. On New Years Eve, the Capobianco family was forced to hand over custody of their adopted daughter over to her biological father. To a father that was unsupportive to Veronica’s biological mother during her entire pregnancy and a father that signed a legal document that he would not contest the adoption. How can being removed from a stable home and nurturing environment possible be in the best interest of the child?
Matt and Melanie Capobianco were not aware that Veronica was considered an Indian child during the initial stages of the adoption. Veronica’s biological father brought in the Cherokee Nation to help with his battle to win custody of a daughter he never knew. I was shocked to hear about this situation. One drop of the Cherokee blood, is all it took for the federal law know as the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) to apply to her adoption case. It is very rare that the ICWA has to be used because the adoption agencies were not covering there bases properly. Anderson Cooper 360 reported, over and over again about the emotional toll this custody battle has taken on the Capobianco family.
Veronica was not removed from an existing Indian home, but adopted by the request of her biological mother and after the birth father stated he would wave his paternal rights and agreed not to contest the adoption. To read about Veronica's birth mother's decision to give her up for adoption, read the article that ran on Jan. 4, 2012.
Veronica was not removed from an existing Indian home, but adopted by the request of her biological mother and after the birth father stated he would wave his paternal rights and agreed not to contest the adoption. To read about Veronica's birth mother's decision to give her up for adoption, read the article that ran on Jan. 4, 2012.
So why would the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) help him? That is the question. Laws are suppose to be intact to protect and I don’t feel like that is what happened in Veronica’s case. Instead, the lower court ruled that the birth father’s consent to the adoption was not necessary to finalize Mat and Melanie’s adoption under South Carolina law. State law said that he had no voice to the future of the child and would not be able to obtain custody because he had abandoned the birth mother. The lower court applied the federal ICWA, which voided a South Carolina adoption law.
It has been 62 days since Veronica was legally kidnapped from her family. Veronica deserves and needs to be reunited with the only family she knows. To help the Capobianco family get their little girl back, DONATE TODAY.
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