If Aps can sue adoption agency's because they didn't get a healthy child that will bond with them....?

aloha.girl59

I think the Mulligans ought to be shot.

OK, not really. But close to it. I hope any lawsuit they file is thrown out by a judge who has a clue. Because what they're doing is NOT OK. How are they going to explain to these kids about their lawsuit? "We wanted you to be perfect and when you showed us that you're not, we wanted our money back." Charming! I want to smack them into next week.

THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES with ANY child -- biological or adopted! Was I concerned that the child we planned to adopt would have disabilities/RAD/autism/etc.? Yes. Would I have sent him back or asked for compensation if he had? NO. Good Lord, these people are morons. It's almost too bad that Elena seems to have bonded with the Mulligans. If she hadn't, maybe some other family could adopt all three siblings and they'd have a shot at a happy life. I fear that all they'll ever hear with the moronic Mulligans is "we didn't get what we paid for." Ugh. (Not a strong enough word, but you know what I mean.)

sweetjane

These people literally bought their third child--the boy---because the 2 girls had a brother in their natural family and lost him and were grieving over that loss. They literally tried to replace the girls' brother with a substitute kid.....then changed the 4 year old little boy's name.

If ANYONE should have a right to sue in this family, it would be the children.....they should sue both the parents and the agency--mainly the agency--that placed them in this house of horrors.

I didn't watch this program, but read the excerpt online.....did anyone say anything about the parents' behavior/attitudes/decisions in the televised version?? Online, the position of the show seemed to express ONLY that these children were the problems, not the AP's.

Sofiakat

This makes me want to puke!
If bonding is not taking place, than that is NOT the agencies fault!
Kids are not blank slates when they are entered into adoption.
Are they returning the kids?

Mary G

I know I have a son with Asperger's, and no I wouldn't sue the Doctor even if I could. That's the thing, as parents we take what we get and love our children.

"There are infants in foster care I can assure you. They may not be the ideal race and they may have drug exposure or a history of abuse but they are most definitely there. I didn't say they had to be healthy, that has nothing to do with attachment
49 minutes ago"

Can I just point out that there is something inherently wrong with the phrase "ideal race" in this answser? Can I also point out, this makes me ill?

ETA: Once again I have to laugh at the thumbs down thing.. Really beacuse I made some observations that may have touched a nerve or two? hahahahhahhah

Felicita1

Yes, under commercial law, anyone can sue if the product is "defective." This is just one more way that adoptees are dehumanized. It is interesting that the customer being interviewed was honest enough to admit that they were "buying" the kids. Most of them talk about it being an "adoption fee" or "service fee" and don't admit that when money changes hands for a human being, it's human trafficking.

For natural moms, they can't sue because they didn't pay anyone for the child -- they are not "consumers" buying a product. Now, if a OB/GYN botches a birth and the child is disabled because of it, the doctor can then be sued for malpractice.

And Linny G has a point: adoptees may attach to substitute parents, but bonding is not guaranteed. Bonding begins at conception, in the womb and by the time a baby is born, he knows his mothers voice, heartbeat and smell. That is bonding and often cannot be replicated or transferred.

Dan B.

did they show her face when she said that? man, that is low.

Andraya

Oh but adoption isn't a business... it is about loving homes for unwanted children. Until the kid isn't the effing angel you thought they would be and then the adoption is "disrupted". Isn't that just a nice way of saying abandoned... AGAIN! Adoption isn't about the kids, pffft, it is about adults playing games with kids.

ROTFLMFAO! AB could you find me one, just ONE, healthy newborn who is going to languish in foster care? Not happening.

monkeykitty83

I personally don't think adoptive parents should be able to sue unless they were intentionally misled about something (for example, the placing agency lied about a medical condition.) In that case, I approve of the suit for two reasons, neither of which are that the adoptive parents are somehow entitled to a perfect child. 1.) To pay for the child's medical and therapy bills resulting from treatment being delayed because information was withheld. 2.) To give the agencies actual financial consequences for being dishonest, to push them toward honesty.

By the same reasoning, natural parents could sue, say, a doctor for lying to them about a medical condition.

I think that many (not all, but many) of the lawsuits filed by adoptive parents are actually inappropriate.

opedial

Any adoption should come with education. Pure and simple. I took older children and their was a high risk one of them might not bond with us. (it worked out okay) But really when I make a committment to parent a child, I parent that child. If he/she ends up with unhealther behaviours/diagnosis, well then that is the risk you take parenting. This does not mean you sue because you didn't get what you wanted!

My friend had her child of natural birth and the baby was born disabled. She cannot change her mind and say "uh, no, sorry not what I thought of while I conceived the child". When you make a committment to parent, you must go with what life gives you. ALL children are gifts. Even last night as my eldest decided to have a regression day and yelled at me for six hours, not once did I think...geez I got the short end of the stick adopting this kid, maybe I should give him back or sue CAS. I mean geez. As a parent my job is to work towards helping him with his problems, not to turn him away because of it.

This is where the exchange of money gets tricky. When you spend $30,000 on a baby, well tough luck you still get what you get. Through foster care you actually get a better chance to be educated about your individual child because they have the history, assessments etc. etc. etc, and it cost NOTHING AT ALL.

Not sure where I went with that but no, I don't believe you can sue because you got a child that does not meet your standards. Geez.

Linny G

They wont bond with them because they are not the child's biological parents.
This man should be sued for child cruelty.

Minnimouse

That disgusts me, I know a lot of adopted friends as well as myself who never bonded with their adoptive parents. I love them and I respect all they have done for me, but I don't have that connection and feel quite separate and isolated from them. If I ever knew my parents were unsatisfied about the "product" they got I would feel awful and quite guilty at not being the perfect adopted child.

Andraya-I was a baby in foster care and perfectly healthy thank you very much. I was placed in an abusive adoptive home first and then taken out into foster care at 3 months and then adopted out again at 5 months.

grapesgum

Didn't anyone tell them that foster care is very inexpensive if not free? Let me guess - they wanted to be sure they got white children.

They clearly see the adoptions as a business transaction and their children as products that can be "made over" to suit them. I can't believe that they changed their 4 yo son's name to a horrible yuppie name. No wonder he can't bond to these heartless monsters without a clue.

I HEART Cornwell

I watched this show as well. I was apalled... the adoptive mother said that she didn't want a baby because of the amount of maintanence. So, when her oldest daughter needed help ("maintanence"), hugs, and a Russian translator, they instead followed her around with a camcorder.

Most adoptive parents are NOT like this.

Adopting older children always comes with risk, wheter it be from another country or your own.

Erin L

I saw the show, too. I knew what kind of people they were when the woman wanted to adopt an older child because she wanted to avoid the work of night feedings, etc. When asked what they thought about people who said they just wanted a perfect child and are now complaining, the mother's answer basically boiled down to she didn't expect a perfect child but she didn't expect her child to be any work or have any problems!

Okay, the father saying the agency should have educated them on the issues of older child adoption. That may be true, but seriously, what world of denial and head in the sand were these parents living in to not know that an older child from an institution in Russia is going to have traumas to deal with. Oh, and yeah, sending a hurt teenager away to boarding school, that's the way to get her to bond with you! And what were they thinking and how were they allowed to adopt another older child from Russia (known for bad conditions and very troubled children) when they already had a very troubled child and were a family in crisis. CRAZY!

I will say, these children, at least the boy, seemed like they had serious problems. I am not minimizing what a task it is to parent a child with RAD, and I truly believe that some do need to disrupt (there are some cases where family members are truly at risk), but come on, these parents really did treat it like it was their kids fault. And I was disgusted that 20/20 seemed to present this couple pretty sympathetically. They even presented the case of the woman who killed her child as the victim of her troubled child pushing her too far. Really disgusting.

Okay, I guess I got carried away complaining about the show and I haven't yet answered your question. It doesn't sound like any legal action by this couple has any leg to stand on, nor should it from what I know of the situation. Anyway, adoption agencies are very good at having clauses in contracts that protect them from being suid for their deceptive practices (witholding information about medical/ social history) that are part of what causes situations like this.

IDK!!

There have been parents who sue the doctors who miss a diagnosis.

There was a woman on Dr.Phil last month who was suing because she was told that her son was normal and he was then born with a chromosome mutation making him mentally retarded and needing 24 hour care his whole life. The mother said she would have aborted had she known and was suing for the expense of raising him.

Adults sue all the time when they get a wrong diagnosis that leads to additional care. I personally suffered from a doctors neglect when he did a procedure and didn't "get it all". I didn't look into suing though.

That being said, an AP should only sue if it is in the best Interest the child. In the case on dateline, they were suing because the children weren't what they wanted. I could see them suing if the child had been diagnosed, that diagnosis hidden and the child continued to suffer because the condition was hidden or lied about. In that case the CHILD should get compensation for THEIR suffering

Jennifer L

I didn't watch the show, but I read the transcript on ABC's website.

I think the APs are trying to prove that the adoption agency knew about the severe psychological trauma the children endured and deliberately misrepresented it to the adoptive parents. And on the transcript at least, the word "buying' is not used. Your interpretation of the lawsuit is not what it says in the transcript.

But to equate it to a natural mother suing, look at it this way. If a doctor knew that an unborn child was 90% likely to be born with Down's Syndrome or spinal bifida or some other disorder and didn't tell the mother about it, yes, she could sue.

I can find plenty wrong with how the APs handled their children's adoption, not the least of which being inexperienced parents adopting older children so that they didn't have to worry about late night feedings and adopting a baby boy to replace the brother that was lost. Unrealistic expectations is a huge reason that many adoptions are disrupted. I was glad to see that there are some more resources out there for parents in these situations, that will hopefully impact the number of disruptions.

ETA: Inde: That's not what the transcript reads. The transcript says that the couple is suing because the agency did not inform them of the children's psychological conditions. Then it says that the couple signed a release that the couple agreed to assume the risk that their adopted children "could arrive with undiagnosed physical, emotional, mental and /or developmental problems."

Like I said, I didn't watch the show. But that's what the transcript says.

Jill_01

If that is what was said, wow...that's just absurd and ridiculous.
Many children that are adopted do well with their adoptive families. But there are those who do not. How is the agency to know which will happen? That's just insane.

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