Author: Joomlafreaks

December 2nd, 2011 by Robert Franklin, Esq.
Clinical trials for the male contraceptive RISUG have begun in the United States.  Read about it here (Wired, 4/26/11).

I’ve written about RISUG (Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance) before and it continues to seem to be the most promising of all male contraceptives.  For those of you who haven’t read my previous piece, here it is. 

RISUG was first developed and tested in India. 
It involves an injection into both vas deferens.  To do that, two small incisions are made into the scrotum and a substance called styrene maleic anhydride is injected.  SMA is a nontoxic polymer that, when injected, coats the inside of the vas deferens and, when sperm cells travel through it, damages them so they can’t fertilize an egg. 

The procedure requires only a local anesthetic.  Its only side effect is moderate discomfort and possibly slight swelling for about a week after the procedure. 

The upside of RISUG is considerable.  First tested in India in 1993, it seems to be 100% effective at rendering the subject incapable of fertilizing an egg.  It is inexpensive.  It is long-lasting, each injection lasting about 10 years.  It is reversible via a second injection.  In all the human trials conducted in India, SMA has proved nontoxic and no long-term side effects have been recorded.  Toxicology studies have been negative. 

In short, RISUG looks like a dream come true for every sexually active man who wants to control whether or not he fathers a child.  One of its many benefits is that, unlike condoms, RISUG is confidential; only the man need know whether he’s had the injection or not.  

Into the bargain, it could be an enormous benefit for women as well.  Many contraceptives in use today by women are hormonal and as such can produce some very unwanted side effects.  Others can be uncomfortable and/or ineffective.  

So, when RISUG becomes available, sexually active couples will be able to decide which option is best for them.  If the pill isn’t advisable, RISUG might just be the perfect alternative.  Indeed, it might become the first choice of couples who want to avoid pregnancy. 

But.  You knew there was a “but.” 

Even though RISUG has been tested on humans in India for 18 years now, that’s not good enough for the FDA in this country.  As the linked-to article makes clear, those in theUnited Stateswho want to get the procedure on the market have had to go back literally to square one and begin testing.  That means testing it on laboratory animals first. 

Attempts in Canada met with the same response. 

From his home base in Ottawa, Ronald Weiss marvels at the possibilities of RISUG. “If you’re looking for the better mousetrap, this is it,” he says. “I have received emails from men all over the world kind of champing at the bit to get RISUG.” 

Weiss had been trying to bring the process to Canada starting in the late ’90s. But when he presented his notes and [Indian developer Sujoy]Guha’s published studies to the regulators at Health Canada, they shot him down. Guha’s studies did not meet their standards, they said. All of them would need to be redone. “Essentially, we were in a situation where we would have to start from zero,” Weiss says. “We would have to redo every single study to get approval. And I didn’t have millions of dollars at my disposal.” 

In fact, even getting to that point was hard.  For one thing, existing pharmaceutical companies showed no interest in the procedure.  Why?  It’s too good.  It’s too effective and to inexpensive.  After all, what is there to interest Big Pharma in a cheap substance that’s used once every ten years?  Those companies far prefer medications that need to be taken regularly, like once a day. 

[Weiss] looked around for a corporate partner but found no takers. Unlike birth control pills, which must be used daily, sometimes for years, RISUG is a long-lasting, low-cost treatment (the syringe could end up costing more than the material it injects). “Pharmaceutical companies are not interested in one-offs,” Weiss says. “They’re interested in things they can sell repeatedly, like the birth control pill or Viagra.” 

So when Guha tried to interest American companies in RISUG, he was met with a stone wall.  Fast forward a few years, however, and American researcher Elaine Lissner has picked up the gantlet.

She founded a small nonprofit advocacy group called the Male Contraception Information Project to push for better male options. By 2001, she had concluded that RISUG was the most promising new development out there and began tracking its ups and downs closely.

Lissner then created a foundation called Parsemus that would fund the necessary research in the U.S.to get RISUG to market.

In February 2010, Parsemus bought the international rights to the RISUG technology from Guha and IIT Kharagpur for $100,000. They had worked closely together for years, and she had earned his trust. She also hired Gary Gamerman, a consultant who specializes in shepherding products through the complex FDA approval process. The plan was to get RISUG OK’d in the US, perhaps even before it hit the market inIndia.

Parsemus plans to begin toxicology testing on SMA this year and, if all goes well, as it always has in the past, begin animal testing shortly thereafter.  It’s also changed the name of the contraceptive to Vasalgel.

But to get human clinical trials going will take more funding than the $500,000 that Lissner has budgeted; Gamerman estimates that the whole approval process could cost $4 million to $5 million.

To get that, Lissner plans to ask organizations like Planned Parenthood, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Susan Thompson Buffett foundation.  The latter two certainly have the money, and have previously backed population control initiatives. 

How long will it take before men can actually utilize Vasalgel to control their fertility?  That looks like anyone’s guess, but I’d say five years looks like a minimum.  But whatever the case, in the not-too-distant future, men in this country will have the ability to decide for themselves – safely, effectively and privately – whether to father a child.

Thanks to Lenona for the heads-up.

December 2nd, 2011 by Glenn Sacks
Solomon Metalwala has been separated from his 4-year-old daughter Maile Metalwala for almost a year, due largely to the discredited abuse allegations made against him by his estranged wife Julia Biryukova. As we’ve explained in previous posts and on our page Campaign to Reunite Solomon Metalwala with His Daughter Maile, these allegations are not credible for numerous reasons.

Now we have one more–as Matt Phelps’ PNW News piece National group lobbies to return Sky Metalwala’s sister to father (12/1/11) explains, at the November 10 dependency court hearing to decide the placement of Maile, Biryukova told the court that she wanted Maile to be placed with Solomon—the man she claimed had abused her and the kids!

Of course, a mentally disturbed false accuser doesn’t change easily, and soon Biryukova was back to making accusations, tellign ABC News “My former husband is a sadistic Muslim Pakistani. No one has any idea.”

Leslie Clay Terry, an attorney representing Solomon Metalwala, described Biryukova’s actions as a “revenge ride in judicial system to prevent Solomon from seeing the children.” He criticized abuse victim’s advocates who “hover protectively around anyone who makes such [abuse] allegations, without the duty to check it out.”

(One note–Metalwala’s choice of religion is in no way reflective of his abilities as a parent or decency as a person. However, as a mere point of fact, we note that Solomon Metalwala is actually a Christian, not a Muslim, as Biryukova asserts.)

December 2nd, 2011 by Glenn Sacks
The Washington Department of Social and Health Services has issued a public statement in response to Fathers and Families’ Campaign to Reunite Solomon Metalwala with His Daughter Maile, and they have asked us to post it for our members. We have done so–it is below.

Predictably, the statement gives few specifics, but, to DSHS’ credit, it does address our core concerns here:

If the court gives Children’s Administration temporary custody of a child, because of concerns regarding one of the child’s parents, we look to the other parent as the first and best placement for the child…Children’s Administration is working cooperatively with the child’s father, the court, law enforcement and others involved in this complex family situation. The Department agrees with the many writers’ recommendations for the child welfare agency and the court to resolve this situation as soon as possible.

Solomon Metalwala will have a hearing this Monday (December 5) in his effort to get placement of his daughter Maile. We’re optimistic about the hearing, and commend Clay Terry, Esq., Solomon’s attorney, for his efforts on behalf of Maile and Solomon.

Washington Department of Social and Health Services’ Public Statement in Response to Fathers and Families’ Protest

DECEMBER 2, 2011

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Sherry Hill, 360-902-7892, sherry.hill@dshs.wa.gov
Thomas Shapley, 360-902-8007, thomas.shapley@dshs.wa.gov

DSHS responds to numerous messages about Metalwala case

This statement is in response to hundreds of e-mails and faxes received by staff at the Department of Social and Health Services this week regarding the Metalwala case. It involves the four-year-old child who was taken into protective custody when her young brother was first reported missing.

Because child welfare records are confidential under both federal and state laws, the Department is not able to share specific information about the case. However, the public can be assured that while a child’s safety is the highest priority, Children’s Administration also recognizes and values the importance of maintaining family connections between children and their birth families.

If the court gives Children’s Administration temporary custody of a child, because of concerns regarding one of the child’s parents, we look to the other parent as the first and best placement for the child. If that other parent is not available or is not a safe placement, we then try to place the child with relatives when possible. We also work with the court to determine appropriate visitation with family. We are acting under these same standards in this case.

Children’s Administration is working cooperatively with the child’s father, the court, law enforcement and others involved in this complex family situation. The Department agrees with the many writers’ recommendations for the child welfare agency and the court to resolve this situation as soon as possible.

Again, thank you for your concern.

Jennifer M. Gau
Department of Social and Health Services
Public Affairs
(360) 902-7829
jennifer.gau@dshs.wa.gov

December 2nd, 2011 by Robert Franklin, Esq.
Canada celebrated National Child Day recently and with it came this op-ed (Edmonton Journal, 11/27/11).

The theme of the piece is that, although Canadians understandably want what’s best for their children and Canada recognizes the 1989 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, still, children in Canada suffer a range of ills.  Here’s a link to the Convention.

Four principles underpin the rights presented [by the Convention]: nondiscrimination in the application of rights to children; the best interests of
children as the primary consideration in all actions and decisions concerning their well-being; the child’s right to survival and development; and the participation of children in matters concerning their well-being. Contrary to popular fears, the convention does not pit children against their parents. Rather it emphasizes the foundational role of the family and the primary responsibility of parents in raising and nurturing their children.

Through a rights-based approach the convention sets out the status of children as legal rights holders and bearers of responsibilities appropriate to their developmental level, rather than as the property of their parents, future persons in the making, or parties deserving of special charity. The convention underscores the universal and inalienable rights of children, while recognizing their vulnerability, the customary ease with which their interests are discounted or overlooked, and their dependence on and integration with family, community and culture.

Fair enough.  According to the Convention, children have rights that are supposed to be enforced by those with the authority to do so, “parents, families, communities and governments.”  But, the authors go on, all too often those in authority fail in their jobs of promoting children’s protection, development and well-being.

In the two decades since its ratification, and despite federal and provincial governments of all stripes championing the interests of children as one of their primary concerns, children across Canada face major obstacles in reaching their full potential. Too often these obstacles are linked to our failure to take children’s rights as seriously as we should and could.

I couldn’t agree more.  Indeed, if there is a single overriding theme of this blog, it is that state agencies ignore the rights of children to real relationships with both of their parents.  Actually, it often seems that those very state agencies actively promote the opposite.  It’s no accident that particularly fathers have come to see family courts and child welfare agencies as their enemies.  The simple fact is that, time and again, those two state agencies act to separate fathers from their children.

And as I never tire of pointing out, that has real consequences for children.  As great volumes of research show, children with fathers actively involved in their lives tend to do better across a wide range of criteria than do their fatherless counterparts.  Across all categories of race, class, ethnicity, religion, geographic location, etc., children with fathers in their lives do better on average than those without.  They do better emotionally and educationally, they’re more likely to graduate from high school, and less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol and be involved in crime.  They’re far less likely to live in poverty or in prison.

All of which might lead you to expect the authors of the Journal op-ed to call for increased measures to ensure father-child contact post-divorce, but they don’t.  They never raise the issue; the word ‘father’ appears nowhere in their article.  An intelligent space alien would get no idea from their article that perhaps the greatest single impediment to child well-being is father absence.

In an article whose title is “The Best Way to Help Children is to Take Their Rights Seriously,” and whose authors are clearly concerned about the condition of children in Canada, it must counted odd that so many Canadian children effectively have no father.  The divorce rate there verges on 50% and the rate of out-of-wedlock childbearing nears our own 40%.  In 90% of custody cases, the mother gets primary custody.  There as in the U.S. that sharply diminishes the contact children have with their father.  The general unwillingness of courts to enforce even the meager visitation rights fathers supposedly enjoy further separates children from fathers.

The failure of the op-ed to mention fatherlessness is doubly strange since the whole piece hinges on the Convention, and that document speaks loudly about the importance of both parents to children’s welfare.  For example:

States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child…

States Parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child…

States Parties shall use their best efforts to ensure recognition of the principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child. Parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians, have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child…

For the purpose of guaranteeing and promoting the rights set forth in the present Convention, States Parties shall render appropriate assistance to parents and legal guardians in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities and shall ensure the development of institutions, facilities and services for the care of children.

The message is clear in the Convention; parents are vital to children’s well-being and children have rights to parents and vice versa.  But however clear the Convention may be, those facts escaped the notice of the authors of the Journal piece.

It’s a strange world.  We know the value of fathers to children.  We say we value children’s well-being.  And yet our institutions often seem bent on denying fathers to those children.  That is an outrage and one of the chief reasons for much societal dysfunction.  Now it appears that even those with a special interest in children manage to miss the obvious – that to better the lot of children, we must reconnect them with their fathers.

December 4th, 2011 by Robert Franklin, Esq.
Yet another study confirms the beneficial effects of fathers on children, particularly boys.  Read about it here (Science Alert, 11/25/11).

It’s not like we don’t have enough of these studies.  They’ve been pouring in for decades.  Indeed, over 18 years ago, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead quoted prominent family sociologist David Popenoe saying that, at the time, there were at least 30 years of data confirming the importance of intact families to children. 
Back in the late sixties, Daniel Patrick Moynahan becamee the target of much misidirected ire when he pointed out that too many African-American children were growing up without a father.  He was right then, but quixotically enough, instead of trying to change the behavior of African-American mothers and fathers, we’ve emulated them.

What was true in the sixties is true today.  Fathers benefit children, but we act like they’re expendable.  Everyone from state legislatures to family courts to child welfare agencies goes merrily along pretending that fathers are uniquely dangerous to children and that, even if they aren’t, they’re not interested in raising them.  That’s complete nonsense, of course but public policy remains in thrall to a radical anti-father ideology that ignores known facts.

The latest study is concerned with children and delinquent behavior.  It was conducted jointly by Deborah Cobb-Clark of the Melbourne Institute of Apllied Economic and Social Research and Erdal Tekin at Georgia Tech.  The researchers used American data collected by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. 

The study, undertaken by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the Faculty of Business and Economics, found that the presence of a father figure during adolescence was most likely to have a preventive effect on whether male youths engage in risk-taking and deviant behaviour.

While active involvement and interaction between fathers and youths was found to be beneficial, it did not explain the positive benefits of children who grow up with fathers in the household.

“The sense of security generated by the presence of a male role model in a youth‟s life has protective effects for a child, regardless of the degree of interaction between the child and father,” Professor Deborah Cobb-Clark, Director of the Melbourne Institute said.

“Fathers provide children with male role models and can influence children‟s preferences, values and attitudes, while giving them a sense of security and boosting their self-esteem. They also increase the degree of adult supervision at home, which may lead to a direct reduction of delinquent behaviour.”

 Using American data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, three factors were studied in the role of fathers influencing youth delinquency: parental involvement and interaction, contribution to household income and engagement with a father figure by simply being present at home.

Unlike previous studies in the field, “Fathers and Youths‟ Delinquent Behaviour‟ which was co-authored by Professor Erdal Tekin from Georgia State University, examines the full range of father figure roles and modern family structures, Professor Cobb-Clark said.

“Our study included residential and non-residential, biological fathers and residential stepfathers and their influence on adolescent behaviours,” Professor Cobb-Clark said.

“We find that adolescent boys engage in more delinquency without a father figure in their lives. Adolescent girls‟ behaviours are less closely linked to this, which may be attributed to the inherent levels of risk-taking that vary between males and females.”

Additionally, higher family incomes were found to have little effects on solving the problems associated with youth delinquency.

That last of course is particularly important.  Often, the anti-dad crowd claims that the effect of dads on children is really just a proxy for their income.  That is, two parents earn more than one, so two-parent households have greater affluence, and children from more affluent homes tend to engage in less delinquent behavior.  That’s all true of course, but study after study shows that the presence of fathers  in children’s lives by itself confers significant benefits.  In fact, income level isn’t the only category across which fatherless children do worse than those with dads in their lives.  The Father Effect cuts across all the usual statistical boundaries including race, religion, ethnicity and geographic location.

So add this study to the pile.  Maybe if it gets large enough, it’ll tip over and bury the various politicians who know the facts but can’t be bothered to pass laws that would connect children to their fathers.  It continues to be one of the most shocking dysfunctions of our political and judicial systems, that we continue to do so little about a problem whose consequences are so well known and so devastating to children, fathers and society.

December 5th, 2011 by Robert Franklin, Esq.
Last week, the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Child Protective Services took an 8-year-old boy from his mother and put him in foster care.  The reason?  He’s overweight – massively overweight.  When he was taken into foster care, he weighed 218 pounds.

Now, it doesn’t take a medical professional to tell us that an 8 year old who weighs that much has serious health problems already and with more to come. 
Everything from diabetes, to bone and joint issues to heart and respiratory problems and more await a child who starts life that big.  So the county child welfare agency took him into foster care citing “medical neglect and the possibility of future health problems” for doing so.

At first blush, it might be easy to say the agency did the right thing.  After all, what mother would allow a child that young to become that large?  But, in a development I find salutary, many people are coming forth to question the county’s action.

For one thing, no one seems to know why the boy is so overweight.  Apparently Mom (no one in this case has yet been publicly named) enrolled the boy in a hospital program for overweight children and he lost some weight, but then regained it.  Both his parents battle weight problems, so it’s likely that there’s a genetic component involved.

Into the bargain, the child does very well in school, having won awards for his classroom performance.

So what’s to be gained by placing him in foster care?  Will the foster parents have some magic potion to give the boy to make him lose weight?  Has the mother truly neglected the problem of her son’s weight?  Does she allow him to eat whatever he wants?  From all the articles I’ve read, it seems like she’s cognizant of the problem and has made efforts to address it but without success.  If that’s in fact the case, I’d call the county’s action inappropriate.  I expect we’ll know more as the case unfolds.  As it stands, Mom has a lawyer who says the county overreached.

This article tells us the perspective of a woman who was obese as a child and who was taken from her parents by a child welfare agency (Dayton Daily News, 12/3/11).

Do the physical health benefits of separating a child from his mother outweigh the emotional impact?

A teenage girl who was taken away from her mother a decade ago when she was a 90-pound 3-year-old has an opinion about that.

“They say it’s for the well-being of the child, but it did more damage than any money or therapy could ever do to fix it,” Anamarie Regino said in an ABC News interview earlier this year.

“To get better, you need to be with your family, instead of being surrounded by doctors.”

Anamarie didn’t improve at all in foster care, and she was returned to her parents. She later was diagnosed with a genetic predisposition.

That of course is the real issue – does the county’s action do more good than harm?  My guess is that in the boy’s case as in Anamarie’s the answer will likely be ‘no.’  I seriously doubt that whatever problems the boy has will be much helped by subjecting him to the type of trauma being taken from his mother entails.  If his problem is genetic, foster care can’t possibly improve matters; if it’s not, the emotional blow will likely make things worse.  Such at least is Anamarie Regino’s message to us.

At 13, Anamarie is no expert on the medical side of the issue.  But some people who defend the county’s move don’t seem to have Anamarie’s grasp of what happens to a child, particularly one as young as eight, who’s taken from his parents.  It’s one of the primary questions that should be answered before any decision is made to take a child into foster care -” is what we’re doing likely to improve the situation?” 

 There seems to be a built in assumption among many bureaucrats, but particularly among CPS workers.  They see a problem and automatically assume that what they do will be better than the status quo.  Something needs to be done, so they do… something.  Specifically, they do what they do, which in this case is to take the child out of his home and into foster care.

Coincidentally, that attitude is displayed in the article thus:

“Well, state intervention is no guarantee of a good outcome, but to do nothing is also not an answer,” responds a Harvard pediatrics professor who has written that “state intervention may serve the best interests of many children with life-threatening obesity.”

True, but what if there were more options than foster care and “to do nothing”?  Indeed, my guess is that there are such options, but if there aren’t, there should be.

As I’ve mentioned before, first in a post on the Big Brother behavior of the Canadian Children’s Aid Society and later in another about CPS in Arizona.  The painfully obvious fact is that we spend enormous sums of money on foster care.  In Canada it’s about $30 per day per child, although here it’s less than that unless the child has special needs.  But it’s simply impossible to believe that, in many cases, the money we spend on foster care couldn’t be better spent providing services to children and parents.

From what I can gather, this mother was in no way unfit or harmful to her son.  She didn’t beat him or deprive him of life’s necessities; she wasn’t a drug addict or a criminal.  She strikes me as a mother who was doing the best she could with a child who has a serious health condition.  So instead of tossing her aside and him into care, why not direct the money that is now going to a foster parent toward getting her help in understanding and addressing his obesity?  After all, someone’s going to have to do that eventually.

The tendency of child welfare workers to do something for the sake of showing they’re aware of a bad situation and being “proactive” is entirely misdirected here.  Foster care won’t help, but helping the mother see what the problem actually is and what to do about it can.  But apparently the caseworkers don’t have those other options to recommend.

And one other thing.

“A 218-pound 8-year-old is a time bomb,” a professor of bioethics conceded in an interview with The Plain Dealer.

“But the government cannot raise these children. A third of kids are fat. We aren’t going to move all of them to foster care. We can’t afford it and I’m not sure there are enough foster parents to do it.”

Good point.  Childhood obesity is an epidemic in this country, and foster care is a very costly way of not solving the problem.

December 5th, 2011 by Glenn Sacks
Update (12/7/11): The Michigan House Committee on Families, Children and Seniors heard testimony on the bills yesterday but will not be voting on them until January at the earliest. Thanks to the hundreds of you who quickly responded to our Action Alert. Michigan Representative  Kurt Heise responded to Fathers and Families members over CAPA here.

Short Version: Fathers and Families has joined with the ACLU of Michigan in opposing the Michigan’s Coercive Abortion Prevention Act (CAPA).
It is one thing to criminalize violence or threats of violence designed to coerce a woman into having an abortion. It is quite another to criminalize men’s personal relationship choices, as CAPA does. Fathers and Families does not take a position on abortion, but we do oppose CAPA. CAPA will be heard in Committee Tuesday December 6–we want you to email Fathers and Families’ opposition letter to the relevant committee members by clicking here.

Full Version: The CAPA was first proposed in 2006, and made it through the Michigan House by a 67-38 vote. In our column Coercive Abortion Prevention Act Assumes Male Guilt, Opens Door to Unfair Prosecutions (Detroit News, 11/30/06) we explained:

HB 5882 [CAPA] actually makes it a crime for a man to “change or attempt to change an existing housing or cohabitation arrangement” with a pregnant significant other, to “file or attempt to file for a divorce” from his pregnant wife, or to “withdraw or attempt to withdraw financial support” from a woman who he has been supporting, if it is determined that the man is doing these things to try to pressure the woman to terminate her pregnancy.

This violates men’s rights. The U.S. constitution’s protected liberty interests safeguard privacy in areas such as contraception, marriage, procreation, child rearing and sexual conduct between consenting adults. Do Michigan legislators believe these protections don’t also cover the basic personal choices HB 5882 proscribes?…

The bill is also laden with unfair presumptions of male guilt. There are many legitimate reasons why a man might be unhappy over his wife or girlfriend’s pregnancy. He may leave because he doubts that the child she is carrying is his. He may want her to terminate a pregnancy because he felt he was deceived into getting her pregnant, and doesn’t want to be on the hook for 18 years of child support. He may leave because she blames him for not being a good enough provider, or lashes out at him during pregnancy-related mood swings. None of these behaviors are particularly chivalrous, but they are certainly understandable.

The current package of bills (HB 4799, 4798, 5132 & 5134) is largely similar to the 2006 CAPA, and the Michigan House Committee on Families, Children and Seniors is scheduled to hear the bills on Tuesday, December 6. Shelli Weisberg, Legislative Director of the ACLU of Michigan, has asked Fathers and Families to join them in opposing the bills. We want you to email Fathers and Families’ opposition letter to the relevant committee members by clicking here.

We’d also like you to call the committee members—to do so, please use the chart below.

Michigan House Committee on Families, Children and Seniors

December 5th, 2011 by Glenn Sacks

Solomon Metalwala (right) and his attorney Clay Terry, Esq. (left) won custody of Solomon’s daughter Maile at the Monday 12/5/11 hearing.

Solomon Metalwala’s 2-year-old son Sky disappeared while in the custody of his estranged wife Julia Biryukova a month ago. Since then, everyone’s focus has been on the search for Sky, as it should be. We speculate that Sky has been stashed with a relative in Ukraine, Biryukova’s native country, but nobody really knows. We hope that Sky is safe and that he will be reunited with his father as soon as possible.

When Sky disappeared, Washington Department of Social and Health Services seized Maile Metalwala, the 4-year-old daughter of Solomon Metalwala, away from her unfit mother, Julia Biryukova, and put Maile in foster care. It is a common but unjust practice for child welfare agencies to put children in foster care instead of giving them to their fathers. Moreover, the Washington court separated Maile from Solomon based on spurious abuse allegations from a now thoroughly discredited accuser.

A week ago Fathers and Families launched our Campaign to Reunite Solomon Metalwala with His Daughter Maile. Our goal has been to push WA DSHS and King County Superior Court to reunite Maile and Solomon as soon as possible. Many of our members and supporters wrote and/or called the relevant authorities, and our campaign has been covered by much of the Seattle media. DSHS issued a statement in response to our campaign on Friday.

F & F Executive Director Glenn Sacks tells KIRO TV in Seattle “We need to get this little girl out of the foster care system and back with the father she loves and needs.”

We are now pleased to report that, in part because Washington Department of Social and Health Services is now supportive of Solomon’s custody bid, Solomon has won custody of Maile, will likely be reunited with her soon. From Seattle KING 5 News’ Solomon Metalwala one step away from regaining custody of Sky’s sister (12/5/11):

A King County Court Commissioner on Monday granted custody of Sky Metalwala’s 4-year-old sister to her father, Solomon Metalwala, pending the removal of a protection order in another court.

The decision was made at a hearing in Kent, where Solomon petitioned in person for full custody of his daughter, Maile, citing Sky’s disappearance…

A court advocate and an assistant state attorney arguing for DSHS agreed with Metalwala. The commissioner granted Biryukova visitation rights, under strict guidelines. Metalwala will gain custody once a restraining order that previously kept him away from the children is vacated…

“In the custody, the wrong parent might have won, and I’m not sure based on the record I’ve seen, we can’t establish domestic violence in the relationship. The mother has very profound mental health issues,” said Tony Masco, assistant state attorney.

Metalwala’s attorney will ask a judge Monday or Tuesday to drop the existing restraining order, clearing the way for Maile to be home for Christmas.

We will continue to monitor the situation and keep our members informed of new developments. We commend DSHS for its position and salute Clay Terry, Esq., Solomon’s attorney, for his determined work towards reuniting Maile with Solomon. Terry told KIRO TV in Seattle on Friday that he “appreciates” Fathers and Families’ efforts.

We thank the Seattle TV stations KIRO and KING 5, KOMO News Radio, and the numerous other Seattle media outlets who covered our campaign for helping to highlight this important child custody issue. We also thank the Washington Domestic Violence Commission for their assistance.

Together with you in the love of our children,

Glenn Sacks, MA Executive Director, Fathers and Families

Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S. Founder, Chairman of the Board, Fathers and Families

December 6th, 2011 by Glenn Sacks
Yahoo contributor Carol Bengle Gilbert slams Fathers and Families’ Campaign to Reunite Solomon Metalwala with His Daughter Maile in her new column Is Dad’s Custody of Sky Metalwala’s Sis Politically Motivated? (Yahoo News, 12/6/11). Gilbert writes:

After police questioned Biryukova’s account of how Sky disappeared Nov. 6,
Child Protective Services placed Maile in foster care, according to the Seattle Times. Solomon Metalwala, supported by a pro-father custody group called Fathers and Families, then began a campaign to pressure King County Superior Court to grant him custody of his daughter.

The pressure seems to have worked; even before today’s hearing granting him conditional custody and granting Biryukova supervised visitation, the Washington Dept. of Social and Health Services issued a statement saying it was working with Solomon Metalwala and publicly agreeing with the clamor for quick disposition.

Is this unusual statement from a public agency in advance of a child custody hearing an indication that Maile has become a political football for the father’s rights movement?

The custody of Maile Metalwala, like that of any child, is not an issue for popular vote…In the Metalwala case, the court’s duty is to decide what’s best for Maile at this time. One factor deserving of absolutely no weight in the decision is the politicking of Fathers and Families. This case is about Maile and what’s best for her, not scoring points in a philosophical debate about fathers, custody, and equal parenting time.

Gilbert’s criticism is a variation of the old “outside agitators” line, and we, of course, disagree. The problems Solomon Metalwala faced–a restraining order based on false charges, and and CPS placing Maile in foster care rather than with her father–are very common, and Fathers and Families’ campaign helped bring these issues to the forefront.

As for our agenda, yes, we believe that what’s best for children is to be with their parents, unless the parent has shown him or herself to be unfit. Maile should be with the father she loves and needs, not shoved off to live with strangers in the foster care system.

December 6th, 2011 by Glenn Sacks
Fathers and Families has joined with the ACLU of Michigan in opposing the Michigan’s Coercive Abortion Prevention Act (CAPA). Fathers and Families does not take a position on abortion, but we do oppose CAPA because it criminalizes men’s personal relationship choices. To learn more about the problems with CAPA, see our Action Alert: Write, Call to Defeat Michigan Legislation Targeting Husbands, Boyfriends.

Members of the Michigan House Committee on Families, Children and Seniors have received many letters from Fathers and Families supporters opposing CAPA. Our arguments didn’t convince Representative Kurt Heise–he has responded to us below.

One point of clarification–we don’t oppose the provisions of CAPA which deal with violence or threats of violence–as our posts and letters made clear, what we oppose are provisions which deal with men’s personal and financial decisions.

Representative Heise wrote:

Thank you for contacting my office to express your thoughts on the Coercive Abortion Prevention Act (CAPA) bills.

I intend to support House Bills 5057, 4799, 4798, 5182, and 5134 concerning coercive abortions in Michigan.   Based on verbal and written testimony before the Children’s Families & Seniors Committee, I believe that many expectant mothers who would otherwise choose to carry their child to term have been coerced, threatened, and even abused by individuals who wish to reverse the woman’s decision.  Such coercion is an affront to public policy and the rights of the expectant mother.

The bills, known as the Coercive Abortion Protection Act (CAPA) would prohibit persons from coercing a pregnant woman to have an abortion by committing, attempting to commit, or maliciously threatening to commit the crimes of stalking, attempting to stalk, or an assaultive crime against the woman.  It also prohibits coercion by contract, denial of employment opportunities, and other monetary and non-monetary coercive acts.

Once again, thank you for contacting my office.  If you have any questions, please contact me directly at (517) 373-3816.  It is truly a privilege to represent you and the constituents of the 20th District in Lansing.

Sincerely,

Kurt Heise
State Representative
20th District