And so it is done; the highest of all courts has ordered that Jessica DeBoer, age 2 1/2, be given up by the only parents she has ever known. And she was taken from her home, her mother and her father, and sent to live with strangers who have so little understanding of the needs of a 2-year-old they will now force her to learn a new name, Anna Lee.
A year ago, I adopted a dog from the pound. He came with a name that might not have been my choice, Jasper, but he was a year old, and I decided it would be cruel to change it, so I didn't. But the couple that the judges felt would be the best parents for Jessica - Dan and Cara Schmidt - did not feel she deserved as much. She's their property, and they will treat her as they please.Most newspaper articles refer to the Schmidts as the birth "parents," but bearing a child does not make you that. Parenting comes from soothing tears for the thousandth time, and getting up at 3 a.m. when you're so tired you can barely stand. It comes from all the things the DeBoers have done for the past two years. It does not come from the mere act of conceiving.
Except in the eyes of judges.
A few paragraphs back, I referred to the Schmidts as the couple "the judges felt would be the best parents for Jessica." In truth - to show how flagrantly Jessica was treated as property - the judges never considered her needs.
Once a lower court judge in Michigan did find Jessica would be better off with the DeBoers, but the state Supreme Court called those findings irrelevant. In their eyes this case had nothing to do with the child's interests, only with who had the best claim. The Schmidts did, the court said, because they conceived her. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed.
When I wrote about this case before, a few callers said it was the DeBoers fault for dragging it out for two years. After all, the woman who gave birth to Jessica changed her mind within weeks.
The truth is that the woman who bore Jessica lied about who the real father was, when she knew it was her old boyfriend, Dan Schmidt. Then the two reconciled and demanded the child back. The DeBoers hesitated, wanting proof of fatherhood, and it took eight long months to get the blood tests showing it was Schmidt. But Schmidt, the DeBoers learned, had two other children - 9 and 13 - that he had no relationship with. The mother of one of those children was quoted as saying Schmidt didn't "give a rat's butt" about his daughter.
Meanwhile, Dan Schmidt married Cara and they had another baby, but they still wanted their property back.
And now, because the judges never cared about what was best for Jessica, the Schmidts have her.
Legally, this case could have gone either way - several judges did dissent. But why would the vast majority have taken the other side?
As a journalist I've observed that too often, something happens to men and women when we give them robes. They sit up there, answering to no one, overwhelmed not just by a deluge of cases, but a legal system that squeezes all emotion out of those cases. Jessica? Just exhibit A. She was even referred to as Baby Child Schmidt. Her interests? Not applicable. Get on with it, counselor. We've got a big caseload.
The result is a little girl who is now being forced to learn the new name of Anna Lee Schmidt.
Any child welfare counselor will tell you that soon, Jessica will wake up in a nightmare, and see strangers' faces, and it will happen again and again and again, and it will traumatize her forever.
And the judges who did this to her will know nothing of her pain, nor will they care. They will be at a cocktail party, or a movie, or a dinner, far, far away.