From Carla Moquin:
13 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in activists, adoption loss, family, fighting adoption systems, fighting false adoption perspectives, friends Tags: family preservation, fighting corruption, open adoption
I am writing to ask for your help in enabling me to take Peri’s case to the California Supreme Court. We have come a long way already, and now we have the opportunity to make a tremendous difference in Peri’s life as well as for thousands of other families who enter into open adoptions believing that open adoption actually means legally enforceable rights of contact with their children.
The California Court of Appeals recently upheld the trial court’s decision that Susan and Demyn did not commit fraud, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of Susan and Demyn’s overt manipulation of our family. The Court reached this decision by ignoring virtually all of the documentation and testimony in the case and even getting a critical fact wrong, despite Demyn’s clear admission at the trial that he knew that I had not been told of their plans not to file the Contact Agreement at finalization and he actively chose not to tell me himself. The Court’s decision creates a disturbing precedent in open adoption law by holding that, even though a California law requires post-adoption contact agreements to be filed and made legally enforceable, adopters can freely ignore this rule by simply claiming (contrary to all the other evidence) that they didn’t know that the biological parent wanted the contact agreement to be filed. This opens the door to blatant fraud within all open adoptions and potentially to adopters and agencies picking and choosing between other forms signed by biological parents (such as a form designating specific adoptive parents) as to what will actually become part of the final adoption framework.
We have a huge opportunity to make sure that open adoption actually means something for parents who are surrendering their children based on promises of openness. Please help us to raise the $1,500 we need to petition the CA Supreme Court to take this case (we have raised $350 already):
Donate To Our Efforts
We are also working to get major media coverage (as well as blogs written) about the huge negative ramifications if this decision is allowed to stand, so as to increase the CA Supreme Court’s interest in the case. If you have ideas or want to assist us in obtaining publicity, please contact me. We would also greatly appreciate if you would please forward this email to others who may be interested in this case.
Many more details and the evidence in the case are on the website here:
BringPeriHome.com
Thank you so much for your support of Peri and your support of bringing integrity to open adoption.
Carla, Nyles, Alpha, and Echo Moquin
