That is a very, very moving post. At least the interviewer had the courtesy to use your wife’s name, more than once. Those two priests should be put in the stocks for their utter lack of understanding of human sensibilities.

I so closely empathise with your feelings and what you must have gone through. And somehow legislators must come to their senses and enable the legislation some of us so desperately crave.

Unfortunately you are right and they seem to hold strong sway. More with “imaginary friends” than without, I fear.

We can argue the niceties of the relative merits and demerits of our national realtionships but this discussion’s starting point was this comment from Swerve.

BTW, in economic terms, our interests are very closely tied to our immediate neighbours, & far less to the USA.

And I was merely pointing out that our interests are much more closely tied to the USA than he implied. I would put our interests with the EU as a group and the US as a nation state, about equal.

I didn’t see the programme but echo its sentiments and your post wholeheartedly. I too have been through it and would not wish it to be repeated for another family member. Once was enough.

Grim901 – interesting points but in terms of economic relationships the US is our single largest export market and our single largest overseas investment base. So, despite our EU membership, which is a separate debate, our economic ties to the US are very strong. Hence my comments above.

I have read with some sadness and some undertanding of the various points of view expressed in this thread, which has, understandably, generated a lot of emotion and some anger.

I feel that the overriding criteria must be what is best for the child or children, not what might be best, politically, commercially or even legally.

If, and I am not for a moment suggesting this is the case, as I do not know enough of the facts to form an opinion, if the children will have better prospects for a happy, fulfilled life outside Haiti, perhaps that should be taken account of.

I suspect there are many cases where a religious, moral, commercial, legal or political reason rules against the best interests of the child in question.

So who are you going to fire your pumpkins at…..??:D