Why am I going on a march against the “law of scoundrels”

Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov/Kommersant

As a hospital volunteer, I often see children with disabilities. Different. Abandoned by parents immediately after birth or later, when it became clear that the child had a disability. Children with cerebral palsy who cannot walk, sit, and sometimes even move. With atrophy of the gastrointestinal tract, living on tubes. With hydrocephalus - a terrible disease that can only be treated at an early age. With Down syndrome, which is often accompanied by a number of other diagnoses. With autism, the consequences of which can be overcome in a normal family.

Some children come to the hospital several times a year, again and again. They have weak immunity, they get sick, and many die very early. No one adopts them, takes them into custody or into a foster family. Because raising such children, treating them, caring for them is not just a lot of work, it is also dedication, self-sacrifice. In Russia, this layer of people who are ready to go to a foreign country for a sick child has not yet grown up - not for their own sake, but in order to make someone’s life easier, to bring good into the world. This is a kind of missionary work. “Whoever receives this child in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me,” says Christ. Many Americans who adopt our sick children are guided by Christian principles. In Russia such missionary work has not yet matured.

There is another category of adoptive parents - absolutely not religious people, but people with an active civic position. They believe that the world needs to be changed, starting with small things, and that by helping one person, you help the world and yourself in the future. But we have not yet developed such a civil society. It may be growing little by little, but today, now, when these children need family warmth, there is no such resource in Russia. And you can increase adoption fees endlessly, but not everything is about money. Much depends on the environment. From the availability and accessibility of inclusive kindergartens and schools, rehabilitation programs, psychological support. From neighbors on the landing and mothers in the sandbox, who gently or not very carefully take their children away, as soon as a child with a disability approaches the sandbox.

Society must grow and change before the State Duma can pass laws restricting international adoption.

Finally, such laws should be adopted with broad public debate and not in a political context, as is the case now. Because it is painfully embarrassing to live in a country where, in response to a ban on our officials entering the United States, these officials are depriving orphans of a chance to have a family.

After all, if the Kremlin really needed a response to the Magnitsky Act, it could be as tough as it wanted and could even cause real problems for the Americans. There is a military base in Ulyanovsk, there is rail transit of goods to Afghanistan, which the United States sought in long and painful negotiations and for which it was paid, perhaps, by Georgia. There are probably many other ways to “get even” with America in the spirit of the Cold War.

But making orphans, children with disabilities, defenseless and unrequited children as bargaining chips in this war is vile, low and not worthy of a state that wants to be respected.

Mentally, I am already prepared for the fact that it will only get worse. The laws that the Duma is churning out confirm the inadequacy of the authorities. But I won't leave here. And of course I will resist.

Actually, I’m not a fan of street actions, rallies and marches. I consider this an extreme measure of protest. But I’m going on a march against the “law of scoundrels” because I was given no choice. Because this is my country and because I care. I don't want my country to be made into a monster. And they won’t make a monster out of her as long as there are caring people who will protest against vile laws.