Who Killed Malachi?

Way back when.... I wrote about the sad case of a child killed in foster care, by his foster mother. His birth mother was 15 when he was born, and had been and still was, in foster care herself. My question was: why was that little boy not placed for adoption right away, so he could have had a chance for a normal life?
I got a lot of mail in my in-box, rather than through this blog. So I am just now getting around to posting it all here.

I must say, I feel somewhat uncomfortable with your comments in "Who Killed Malachi". As a crisis pregnancy counselor, I have to tell you how extremely difficult it is to get our clients to be open to the thought of adoption. Just today I tried and tried to get the point of how adoption would benefit their child to a couple that will most certainly lose their child to CYS and the foster care system once the baby is born. Adoption is not something they will even try to consider. Generally, these are lowly educated people who are not responsible and take no accountability for their actions,- all reasons that helped lead them to the crisis they are facing. They generally rebel against authority and truly believe that their children are better off with them. Your article made it sound like if only someone had encouraged adoption, the mother would have suddenly taken responsbility and accountability as a parent. While I am not at all familiar with this case, I can tell you that biological parents will rarely admit their children are better off elsewhere, much less be responsible enough to actually go through with placing their child for adoption. I went through a lengthy training from the National Adoption Council, yet in my 4 years at a crisis pregnancy center, I have yet to see a client 'do the right thing' by placing her child for adoption.

Thanks to everyone who wrote about this. Sorry it took so long to get this posted. The original article is here.

Consumer Health Care

The Wall Street Journal has an article by this title. Walmart and CVS Pharmacy now offer walk-in medical service for simple problems. The WSJ author emphasizes the convenience and low cost that consumer-based, non-governmental medical care can offer.
I am interested in these walk-in clinics for a different reason. Many states award contracts for medical care to Planned Parenthood clinics. I'm told by my friends in Pennsylvania that Planned Parenthood has the state contract to do cervical cancer screening, and STD testing. This is legitimate medical care. But why does Planned Parenthood have to do it? The state could just as well give the contract for simple routine testing to WalMart.
This is becoming an important question in Texas, which recently began state funding for an alternatives to abortion program. The funds for the abortion alternatives program are taken from the family planning budget, which includes funding for various reproductive health activities. Naturally, the Planned Parenthood types are incensed that their funding is being cut, in favor of alteratives to abortion programs. The abortion proponents are casting the conflict in terms of medical care (which is what Planned Parenthood provides) versus talking (which is what the abortion alternatives program provides.)
This conflict could be resolved by taking all the medical contracts away from an ideological organization like Planned Parenthood, and giving the contracts instead to these walk-in clinics based in Big Box retail stores.
"No state funding for abortion," is an extremely shallow claim, if in fact, the states are funding abortion providers for other services. Money is fungible. If they are making money doing cancer screenings, that is revenue that is available to fund their other activities, including abortion.
Let WalMart and CVS provide these services.