"Please Don't Let Them Kill Or Abuse More Children" By Christine Adamec

The Article "Please Don't Let Them Kill Or Abuse More Children" By Christine Adamec covers the social issue of child abuse and ways we can prevent it. This well written and informative article informs and inspires readers to help abusive situations in anyway they can. Adamec does this by including a couple of shocking child abuse stories and some facts that really show how horrible this issue is. For example, Adamec writes about young Mary Ellen Wilson, one of the first reported child abuse cases in America. She "was severely abused back in 1874, there were no protective laws for children. Only when the New York Society for the Prevention Of Cruelty to Animals intervened was Mary Ellen at last protected." Clearly this story is quite melancholy since Mary Ellen was saved but only by an Animal Cruelty Society. This shows how bad Child Abuse was before and that it only escalated from there. The issue is even more noted upon when Adamec includes facts such as, "A federal law requires that a permanent plan should should be made for every foster child after 18 months in care. But few states comply, so we have a revolving door of kids entering foster care, going back to abusive parents, re-entering foster care and so on." This facts shines light on how complex child abuse situations get.

Adamec's main goal when writing this, however was to show her opinions on how America can prevent child abuse and help the children in these terrible situations. For example she adds opinion when she states, "Action must be taken to  help the abused kids, both those who never even enter the foster care system until they've received a death sentence as well as the thousands of children entrapped and warehoused for years in the foster-care system." This shows how much anger Adamec has toward the foster care system and that there must be an answer, which she provides, to helping the poor children abused then "entrapped" in the system. Adamec's solution to this ever growing problem is. "My answer is to give abusive parents chances, but also give them a firm time limit. If after two years, the parents cannot or will not take action to recover from their alcoholism, drug abuse or whatever the problem is that led them to abuse their children, then I think their parental rights should be terminated. I think these psychologically enslaved children should be freed to be adopted by screened and loving adoptive parents." Clearly Adamec has a big plan for the Child Welfare System and kids all around America.

After reading this article and Adamec's plan for abused children across the country I find her ideas to be very achievable, hopeful, and well thought out. Terminating parental rights would help prevent kids from falling back into the hands of abusive parents who have no remorse . However, Adamec's hope for these children to all be adopted is impractical because there are not enough loving adoptive parents out there and this would just leave the thousands of kids trapped in foster care with people who might not always be better than their parents were. Also, Adamec left out certain cases where poverty might have been the reason for Child Abuse involving neglect and poverty can't just be fixed. Therefore if you terminate these loving people's parental rights after only two years then they may never get to see their children again. Overall I am convinced that foster care and child abuse are complex and flawed but I don't believe most of Adamec's plan would cause more good than bad.