Federal Law Gives Tribe Ruling in Baby Talon's Fate....

[Shell Beau]

Six months ago, Utah couple Clint and Heather Larson adopted a baby boy named Talon who was born with drugs in his system and nursed him back to health.

A 6-month-old baby is returned to his birth mother's Indian tribe.
The baby's biological mother is a member of the Leech Lake band of the Ojibwe American Indian tribe. A few months later, the tribe went to court, saying the mother had changed her mind and wanted the baby back -- a legitimate claim, they say, under the federal Indian Child Welfare Act.


So Sunday evening, with tears streaming down her face, Heather Larson surrendered Talon to the tribe.


"We don't understand," she told "Good Morning America" today. "The only thing we care about is Talon's welfare. ... But imagine your child being taken from you. And you may never see them again. And you may never know where they are. And you may never know if they're safe, if they're being fed, if they're being cared for."






http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6470441&page=1






Read and tell me what you think?

[Midlodemocrat]

1. I saw this on GMA today. I think it is horrific to do that.

I understand the issues that the tribe would like to keep the tribe members together, but to me, this is akin to refusing to allow gay couples to adopt. The child is better off in foster care? C'mon.

It stinks.

[Shell Beau]

3. The child will go to foster care, How can they take him

from a home where he is wanted and loved and put him in foster care. What about his best interest?

[Midlodemocrat]

4. That's the part that bothers me. If they were returning him to his

birth parents, that would be different. Foster care isn't a forever home. I understand his siblings will be there, but so what?

[skygazer]

2. I think we've taken enough from Indian people

We don't need to take their kids too.

The law is there to protect people who have lost a great deal of their culture. The child will be living in a home with his siblings. He is 6 months old and will adjust. It is heartbreaking for his adoptive parents, of course, and I sympathize with that. But I don't think subjecting him to the uncertainties of a legal battle is any more in his best interests than anything else.

[Shell Beau]

5. I agree about that they have suffered, but I am concerned about

what is best for this child who is also Caucasian and Hispanic.

[skygazer]

6. Well, with no other information than a news story

And the emotional responses of people on both sides, I don't see how I can make any kind of truly informed opinion.

But I do think that Indian nations tend to have a different view of "family" than other cultures, one in which membership in the tribe is much like membership in the family, and that whether its a foster home or a home with his biological parents, it is likely that it will be one that is welcoming and supportive. I don't know as you can judge "foster family" in the same way, in other words.

The people who adopted him, after all, are not his biological family but no one seems to doubt they'd give him a good home. I see no reason to doubt - without any evidence to the contrary - that this foster family would do any differently.

There are 7000 people left in this tribe. With no evidence that the child is going to suffer by it, I can't begrudge them one more.

[Gormy Cuss]

7. What a sad story.

The Larsons have bonded with this child and made him safe in his first six months. I hope that he is told of this caring set of parents when he is older.

As someone with family members who have/had no cultural heritage because of adoption to white families, I can also understand the Ojibwe's attempt to bring the child to a place where he will grow up with a tribal identity and where he may know his biological siblings and extended relatives.