A Troll In Defense Of Human Trafficking

Tonight, we accepted the referral of Luis Carlos, born New Year's Day at 9:40 pm to a twenty year old birth mother. He was 7.8 lbs and 19.7 inches long.

You are definitely going to be Charles Brayden, after your father. You are beautiful and ours--not to hold and love right now, but to pray for your safety and your future.

We love you already little one. Be warm and loved tonight. Sleep sweetly in Jesus.

The above is a comment from a profile connected to a comment that came to this site about this post. The post is about a kidnapped and trafficked Guatemalan child named Anyeli Rodriguez, whose return to her natural parents was ordered by Guatemala, despite the fact that a well-off couple in Missouri paid good money for her, and, no doubt, have every intention of getting their money's worth. While the comment sounds very warm, fuzzy, and cute, the reality of kidnapped, bought, and sold children is horrible. The comment came from someone who obviously defends Tim and Jennifer Monahan's unlawful actions of holding Anyeli against her will, and the complicity of the United States government, despite a court order from Guatemala for her return.

Adopted children often have little, if any family history for health records.  Testing for medical problems that are hereditary is often prohibited by insurance companies, unless the patient can prove a family history of the medical problem in question. Colon cancer can be diagnosed and treated, even in the absence of actual cancer, (yes...it almost happened to yours truly!) while celiac disease is simply not considered because of unnaturally inflated costs associated with testing for it. What's an adopted child to do? There are also a couple of types of anemia that are hereditary, and very serious. Unfortunately, plump Anglo-Saxon types, such as the Monahans, who continue to hold Anyeli hostage, cannot possibly have experience with them. Thalassemias are a group of anemia types that typically run in Mediterranean and Ashkenazi Jewish families. Once in awhile, the problem will be encountered in African bloodlines, as well. Sickle cell anemia runs in African bloodlines, and is not well understood and not expertly treated in the United States. A child trafficked from another country, from a misrepresented or unknown ancestry can present with symptoms that may never be properly diagnosed if the adoption of the child is black market. This is cruel, and as a physician, Tim Monahan should know better.

What about the parents, older siblings, and other family members of kidnapped children, such as Anyeli? Do they desrve no consideration? Americans often take the stance that black market adoptions involving foreign children are okay, despite their shady and unlawful nature, because upper middle class Americans typically have more money than poor, third world parents. Is this a reason to assume a parent does not love his or her child, and arbitrarily kidnap the child? Do money and middle class American, materialistic goals truly replace love, and a child's heritage?

To discuss the human trafficking aspect of this case, and to get to the real reason this bible thumping black market adoption supporter is truly scary, here is the comment, followed by two points to consider:"While you are certainly entitled to your opinion on the subject, maybe you should not reveal this child's personal information in such a public forum. This further compromises her situation, making her even more vulnerable-- and by extension, you and your community face further threat, which is one of your main concerns."

Why shouldn't we reveal Anyeli Rodgriguez's personal information? The Guatemalan government reveals her personal information. The only purpose that will be served by not revealing this child's personal information, and the personal information of every other known kidnapping victim is the safety of the perpetrators. Why would a bible thumper call for protection of human traffickers? And why do bible thumpers see fit to make the rest of the world more hostile to Americans by trafficking human beings? Remember Laura Silsby,  after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010? Americans seem to provide a market for trafficked children. Laura Silsby spent some time in a Haitian jail for her crimes, and when witnesses spoke out about what she was doing, the only people who were compromised by revealing the personal information of the children involved were Laura and her band of merry Christian human traffickers! As for Anyeli's situation, the United States seems vested, somehow, in allowing her captors to keep her from her family and her country. It's possible that she will have to read about her own case, or see a picture of herself on missing child posters. Of course, the people who bought her, the Monahans, could always opt to keep her from ever getting online or re-learning Spanish, her native language, until she is eighteen. How will she feel, as a young woman, if she meets her REAL mother, the one who searched and searched for years, never gave up, and cried her eyes out every night because her child had been stolen? Is that the kind of thing that instills loyalty in an adopted child bought from human traffickers? Think about it, christian adoptive parent. And don't buy your children from Kmart, or from anyone who circumvents the law.

 

Wrong Diagnosis

I noticed this item on Yahoo News today about Herlinda Garcia, from Texas, who was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. After going through seven or eight rounds of chemo, it was discovered that her illness was benign, not malignant, and she never actually had cancer at all! She sued, and a jury awarded her 367,000. After her ordeal with pain and suffering and side effects from the chemo, that does not sound like anywhere near enough.

A few years ago, I lost quite a bit of weight in a short time, lost almost all the color in my complexion, (I looked like a wannabe Goth!...dark hair, very pale) and developed horrible stomach problems. Horrible. Nothing I ate agreed with me. Also, I could eat and eat and eat and eat and never feel as if I had eaten anything, and never gain a pound. In fact, I lost so much weight, while inhaling somewhere between twelve and fifteen thousand calories a day, that I became dangerously underweight. I finally went to a doctor, and after hearing about my stomach problems, he decided that it MUST be colon cancer. The fact that I was also severely anemic (hemoglobin down to 6.5) seemed to be all the proof he needed. I argued that the problem with anemia had been with me for my entire life, although not always as severe, and that cancer usually kills it's victims in a much shorter span of time than I had tolerated these symptoms. Even the stomach problems were not new; albeit they were progressive: they had gotten worse over time, especially after pregnancy.

Three colonoscopies later, no one had been able to find any type of colon cancer or stomach cancer in any part of my soma; not even an ulcer. So what did the clinic recommend? That I undergo chemo, even though I did not have cancer! Outrageous! I said no. I was told I was going to die. I still said no. I researched stomach problems and found something called celiac disease, which is an autoimmune disease caused by intolerance to gluten; and is also hereditary. I was told that before insurance would approve the tests for celiac, which are almost prohibitively expensive, I would have to prove that it ran in my family! Unfortunately, most of my Dad's family had been deceased for quite some time, and no one had been diagnosed with celiac disease. There had been a "mystery stomach problem" that affected many of them, but without the diagnosis of a first degree relative, insurance would not cover the labwork. It would, however; cover chemo.

Eventually, the director of the clinic got tired of watching me suffer, and we did some genealogical research (a hobby of his) on some family members and ancestors of mine whose obituaries were either online or otherwise available to me. From those, he extracted and constructed enough of a family history consisting of a likelihood of gluten intolerance caused by celiac disease to convince insurance to cover the labwork. The results came back positive, and we also discovered that the type of anemia I have is hereditary as well, and is not the result of iron deficiency. Chemo and massive doses of iron would never have helped.

The moral of this story is that one should always question authority. Had I failed to question authority, I would have had chemo, stayed anemic, lost my hair for nothing, and still have been sick when it was all over, had I been lucky enough to survive. Because I questioned authority, the appropriate diagnosis was made, and I eventually recovered, much to chagrin of my ex husband! As an added bonus, my children are aware of hereditary autoimmune diseases, and of celiac disease, and if they, or any of their children ever develop symptoms, they will not have to suffer. Of course, pharmaceutical companies do not make money through celiac disease, as there are no medications or cures for it, other than carefully avoiding any food containing gluten. Health food stores, garden supply stores, and manufacturers of cookware are the businesses that make money because of it. That, I believe, is the real reason that insurance companies almost always refuse to cover the tests for celiac disease.

Hopefully, Herlinda Garcia can recover. Even winning a lawsuit is no substitute for simply being told from the very beginning that she did not have cancer.