Official Adoption Reform discussion thread (birth, options, parents, foster care)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A discussion of adoption reform seems in order, since the topic keeps invading other threads. I'll be moving in some earlier comments from other threads -- please add your thoughts on the topic here.
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 10-12-2012 at 02:25 PM..
You don't supply any objective criteria for determining what is or what is not ethical.
Objective Criteria for Determining Ethics in Adoption
by gcm7189
1. Adoptions range in cost from under $5k (American foster care) to $50k+ (Russia). The source for this information has been cited twice already and nobody has responded. So in determining if these fees are ethical, I would suggest researching why there is such a large range of pricing. I would also suggest considering why some children cost more than others.
2. Copying and pasting from a comment I made on page 24 of this thread to which nobody has responded: Upon the finalization of an adoption (infant or older child), the original, factual birth certificate is sealed away and a new/falsified one is created that lists the adoptive parents as the biological parents of the adoptee. Currently, adult adoptees in most of the world's industrialized nations have a right to unrestricted access to their original birth records. However, here in America, only six states grant adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates. Every single domestic adoptee in the United States is issued a falsified birth certificate. Even children who are adopted when they are older. Children who are in foster care maintain their original birth certificates until an adoption is finalized at which time they are issued a new birth certificate listing the adoptive parents as the biological parents. So in determining if the practice of falsifying only the birth certificates of adoptees is ethical, I would suggest considering why it is that only adoptees are treated this way.
The topic here is adoption. Not healthcare, grocery shopping, funerals or any other capitalistic endeavor. I have now offered two examples of objective criteria through which one could begin to determine if the adoption industry is entirely ethical. No hyperbole. No "literary tactics." The above are facts. The information I have provided here has also been referenced several times already without anyone offering a response.
For additional reference, I would like to suggest that everyone check out the PAP Bill of Rights and AP Bill of Rights developed by Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform (PEAR). This organization of adoptive parents has given a lot of thought to the topic of ethics in adoption.
The fact that an adoption system resembling that of Australia has not been enacted in even one of the fifty states speaks volumes.
You seem to be under the impression that adoptees are not a minority & that it is easy for minorities to get laws enacted in which there is an ABSURD amount of money being used to lobby against such efforts. If you do not see the very obvious problem with that scenario, I'm not sure I can help you see the forest for the trees.
Quote:
With respect to "money changing hands" how would you propose to have any adoption at all if there was no money to pay for offices, utilities, insurance, and salaries for people running an adoption agency? America is a "cash economy" and I didn't make it that way. Of course, maybe that is your point--stop all adoption by simply defunding it.
If it's been done then it is obviously possible. How about you educate yourself on these things BEFORE you make assumptions about our motivations for discussing them? No one here is saying to stop all adoptions, but of course you will only see what you want to see & apparently you want to see that anyone advocating for adoption reform must be anti-adoption or anti-children (which is just silly).
Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359
You repeatedly strip-quote whatever I have to say.
I "strip-quote" for clarity so you know exactly what I am responding to. Anyone can view the OP if they want, but it really isn't necessary to requote things like insults or straw men.
Quote:
My whole point is that if you are going hungry, the fact that people insist you pay for food is going to strike you as a hell of a lot more unfair or unethical than if someone's adoption fees are $25,000. If you can't afford antibiotics and insurance won't buy them for you, you may well die of pneumonia. Again, much more unfair than whether adoption fees are $25,000.
& my whole point is that this is a deflection -- they are completely separate issues & in case you didn't realize NOT mutually exclusive -- both can be unethical. Again, you seem to think because there are more people with medical concerns, this means something other than there are more people who have medical concerns than there are people that adopt/relinquish/are adopted.
Quote:
You don't supply any objective criteria for determining what is or what is not ethical.
Yes, we have. Lots of resources that I'm sure you haven't read. BTW you have yet to supply any objective criteria for determining what is or is not ethical, either. All you want to say is that people don't share our opinions, therefore it must be ethical.
Quote:
Does it strike you as unusual in this situation that YOU bear the burden of proof of demonstrating that adoption laws in this country are wrong and should be changed?
No. But YOU also bear the burden of proof of demonstrating adoption laws in this country are ethical if that is your claim. Don't act like you are neutral here & are open-minded to criticizing the adoption industry. You are also making claims & I am still waiting for you to substantiate them.
Last edited by thethreefoldme; 10-04-2012 at 05:54 AM..
The fact that an adoption system resembling that of Australia has not been enacted in even one of the fifty states speaks volumes.
Actually, the United States does have an adoption system resembling that of Australia, at least one sense. The states all have measures in place to provide care for children who need it. The states also have measures in place to assist families in staying together. And according to The Adoption Guide that has now been referenced four times without anyone commenting on it, adoption from foster care in the United States costs less that $5k.
Now, I am not saying that this system is perfect and is not in need of reform. I am also not saying that the system in Australia is fool proof and perfect. But what Australia did that the United States has not done is do away with unregulated third party agencies that exist purely for the sake of facilitating adoptions. This intrigues me. Adoption should be a last resort for a child. All efforts should be made to keep a child within his or her own family. If all measures to do so have failed, only then should adoption enter the picture. Australia has set up its system so that it runs on this premise. Family preservation is the priority.
Here in the United States, as has been pointed out, the adoption industry is simply another capitalist business dealing in the product of young human beings. The goal of the adoption industry is not family preservation. The goal of the adoption industry to ensure that there is a supply of children available for people who are willing to pay for one. Hence the private adoption fees ranging of (hold on, let me once again check the source that nobody has acknowledged) $20-50k depending on what type of child you want. Australia decided that it is not necessary for adoption agencies to exist in order for children to secure safe, secure homes. Because the focus should be on family preservation. The focus should not be on finding children for people willing to pay for one.
Seeing as it costs less than $5k to "save" a child from a life in in the U.S. foster care system and there are lots of children here in need of safe, secure homes--what is the ethical argument for private adoption agencies charging upward of $50k to obtain a child? Again, not all people adopt for altruistic or supremely moral reasons. As we have seen right here in this forum. there are adoptive parents who solidly admit that they went to another country so as to avoid having to deal with biological families. Some people are bypassing the more affordable adoption option provided by the U.S. foster care system and willingly paying upward of $50k to get a child.
Again, no hyperbole here. Just facts. Australia did away with third party agencies which means that adoption is no longer about who has enough money to get what they want. The focus there is on family preservation and guess what? The number of adoptions has gone way down. More children are staying with their families. This should be viewed as a positive thing. But of course, in our capitalistic society where some people want what they want when they want it, doing away with unregulated third party adoption agencies would mean that some people might not get what they want.
Once again, I have offered no hyperbole. I have offered facts about the adoption industry and the systems currently active in both the United States and Australia.
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 10-12-2012 at 08:16 PM..
Actually, the United States does have an adoption system resembling that of Australia, at least one sense. The states all have measures in place to provide care for children who need it. The states also have measures in place to assist families in staying together. And according to The Adoption Guide that has now been referenced four times without anyone commenting on it, adoption from foster care in the United States costs less that $5k.
Now, I am not saying that this system is perfect and is not in need of reform. I am also not saying that the system in Australia is fool proof and perfect. But what Australia did that the United States has not done is do away with unregulated third party agencies that exist purely for the sake of facilitating adoptions. This intrigues me. Adoption should be a last resort for a child. All efforts should be made to keep a child within his or her own family. If all measures to do so have failed, only then should adoption enter the picture. Australia has set up its system so that it runs on this premise. Family preservation is the priority.
Here in the United States, as has been pointed out, the adoption industry is simply another capitalist business dealing in the product of young human beings. The goal of the adoption industry is not family preservation. The goal of the adoption industry to ensure that there is a supply of children available for people who are willing to pay for one. Hence the private adoption fees ranging of (hold on, let me once again check the source that nobody has acknowledged) $20-50k depending on what type of child you want. Australia decided that it is not necessary for adoption agencies to exist in order for children to secure safe, secure homes. Because the focus should be on family preservation. The focus should not be on finding children for people willing to pay for one.
Seeing as it costs less than $5k to "save" a child from a life in in the U.S. foster care system and there are lots of children here in need of safe, secure homes--what is the ethical argument for private adoption agencies charging upward of $50k to obtain a child? Again, not all people adopt for altruistic or supremely moral reasons. As we have seen right here in this forum. there are adoptive parents who solidly admit that they went to another country so as to avoid having to deal with biological families. Some people are bypassing the more affordable adoption option provided by the U.S. foster care system and willingly paying upward of $50k to get a child.
Again, no hyperbole here. Just facts. Australia did away with third party agencies which means that adoption is no longer about who has enough money to get what they want. The focus there is on family preservation and guess what? The number of adoptions has gone way down. More children are staying with their families. This should be viewed as a positive thing. But of course, in our capitalistic society where some people want what they want when they want it, doing away with unregulated third party adoption agencies would mean that some people might not get what they want.
Once again, I have offered no hyperbole. I have offered facts about the adoption industry and the systems currently active in both the United States and Australia.
I don't think Australia is perfect either, however, as I've posted in a previous post on here, I do think NSW has the right idea doing adoptions through both the government and selected community service agencies like Centacare, Anglicare and Barnardos (links provided earlier) whose actual reason d'etre is to provide a wide range of services to the community at large. I believe they do charge in NSW unlike Victoria although I think the fee is very affordable (a couple of thousand of which probably does go into the general kitty or administration for the whole organisation or perhaps to provide funds for general women services (I wouldn't really know exactly)). Each state is different though no state has stand alone adoption agencies or private adoptions (which are illegal).
I think Victoria also has the right idea doing it the way they do it (which I believe is totally through the government), however, I realise there are many on here who wouldn't trust their own state governments which is why I thought NSW's version might be more appealing and more achievable. I believe that there are some community service agencies in the US that are similar to Centacare and Anglicare that operate in a similar way - I do have an online AP friend who says that she wouldn't adopt any other way because she felt that everything really was done right because their emphasis wasn't on adoption but on helping a person in need.
Btw I did post a reply earlier to Linmora in regards to some ideas that I think might possibly work in the US (small baby steps).
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 10-12-2012 at 08:21 PM..
Adoption, for whatever reasons, is a financial transaction. Individual adopted parents' motivations are not the issue, really, when discussing the system of adoption.
The children who are moved around within this system, when they become adults and are given voices, are in general advocating for reforms within the system in which they have had no say.
Some, no matter how much "love" they benefited from, can't help but feel, that the system itself - not necessarily adoptive parents, treated them like commodities within that transaction. They are searching for ways to ensure that every effort is made to respect the voiceless in that model, and that as they reach adulthood the "system" can let go of thinking of them as children who the system knows best for and bring them into the conversation.
This is not anti-adoption or anti adoptive parents.
Adoption, for whatever reasons, is a financial transaction. Individual adopted parents' motivations are not the issue, really, when discussing the system of adoption.
The children who are moved around within this system, when they become adults and are given voices, are in general advocating for reforms within the system in which they have had no say.
Some, no matter how much "love" they benefited from, can't help but feel, that the system itself - not necessarily adoptive parents, treated them like commodities within that transaction. They are searching for ways to ensure that every effort is made to respect the voiceless in that model, and that as they reach adulthood the "system" can let go of thinking of them as children who the system knows best for and bring them into the conversation.
This is not anti-adoption or anti adoptive parents.
Oh yes. Sweeping, inaccurate generalizations implying that "they" do not like any adoption is finding common ground. Not one person here has ever said that they don't like any adoption. And you have repeatedly referred to people as "anti-adoption." Would this be an example of how you are working very hard to find common ground? Sweeping generalizations and labeling?
I repeatedly hear this line from some, "I'm not against adoption. Don't call me anti-adoption."
The problem with that is that the policies and "reforms" that most of these people advocate would end 90 to 95 percent of all adoption. For example, one or two people have actually opined that money is not necessary in adoption at all. When very basic concepts are explained to them such as the need for a physical office, salaries for adoption workers, expenses for phone, utilities, insurance, etc. some have actually replied that somehow other countries (I presume Australia again) get by without this. This is just nonsense. I say if you walk like a duck, talk like a duck, and act like a duck than you for all practical purposes either a duck or "anti-adoption".
Quote:
Also, I believe that you have stated how you tried for five or six years to have a biological child. And succeeded. You did all of this before adopting. So one could conclude that if a person was willing to put five or six years of effort into having a biological child, it is quite obvious that "DNA, ethnicity, blood and all of that" is extremely important to that person. So you can stop trying to convince us that you think it isn't.
I think what you are missing here is the background. If you look into infant adoption here in the USA (I realize that's an evil word to some people) honest agencies will tell you that you have a very long waiting period ahead of you. That isn't the half of it. Some will even say that its downright impossible and will suggest that you consider international adoption instead. Intelligent people have to weigh that against struggling with infertility. Even expensive and extreme options like invitro-fertilization may not seem bad when compared with the uncertainties involved in domestic adoption.
I know for my wife and I that DNA meant very little to us. We moved through angst over infertility in days or weeks rather than the months or years that some people describe. We know enough about our biology to know that it has good and bad in it. We have some geniuses and near geniuses in our family tree. We also have some with mental illness and there apparently is a high amount of prostate cancer among the men. Biology is a mixed bag period.
I would like to think there is some basis for common ground among those involved in the triad (adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents). I've concluded there may not be much common ground at among some of us. I have one point of view. Others here have an entirely different point of view. I'm completely capable of respecting those who are honest about what they believe in. However, someone is immediately off on the "wrong foot" with me when they make claims like:
1. "I'm not against adoption" (when in fact they are against 90 to 95 percent of it).
2. "You don't need money to have adoption" (when, as mentioned above, you do need money to run even a simple, basic agency)
3. "Adoption is like slavery or kidnapping". (extravagant and hyperbolic comparisons like these are silly and destroy credibility)
4. "Adoption in America is unethical" (when there aren't universally accepted standards on these ethics)
5. "Fees for adoption services should be greatly restricted or controlled". (When this country doesn't even try to regulate the fees for essential life-saving services like medical care)
A good start for those who want me to accept their notion of "adoption reform" would be to get one out of the 50 states in this country to pass laws like they have in your beloved Australia. Asking for one out of fifty is not unreasonable. Than, you would be at least on your way to showing that these "ethical adoption standards" that you tout are winning at least minimal acceptance in the USA.
Until that happens, you are really just voices crying out in the wilderness.
Last edited by markg91359; 10-05-2012 at 06:57 AM..
The problem with that is that the policies and "reforms" that most of these people advocate would end 90 to 95 percent of all adoption.
I don't know where you are getting these statistics, but when reductions are made & the result is children being raised in safe environments with their families or by loving people from their country that is a good thing.
Quote:
For example, one or two people have actually opined that money is not necessary in adoption at all. When very basic concepts are explained to them such as the need for a physical office, salaries for adoption workers, expenses for phone, utilities, insurance, etc. some have actually replied that somehow other countries (I presume Australia again) get by without this. This is just nonsense. I say if you walk like a duck, talk like a duck, and act like a duck than you for all practical purposes either a duck or "anti-adoption".
No. High costs for adoptions & third parties are not necessary, that is what has been stated.
Quote:
I think what you are missing here is the background. If you look into infant adoption here in the USA (I realize that's an evil word to some people) honest agencies will tell you that you have a very long waiting period ahead of you. That isn't the half of it. Some will even say that its downright impossible and will suggest that you consider international adoption instead. Intelligent people have to weigh that against struggling with infertility. Even expensive and extreme options like invitro-fertilization may not seem bad when compared with the uncertainties involved in domestic adoption.
I think what you are missing is that adoption should be about what is best for children, not about supplying infants or children to people who have demand for them.
Quote:
A good start for those who want me to accept their notion of "adoption reform" would be to get one out of the 50 states in this country to pass laws like they have in your beloved Australia. Asking for one out of fifty is not unreasonable. Than, you would be at least on your way to showing that these "ethical adoption standards" that you tout are winning at least minimal acceptance in the USA.
Until that happens, you are really just voices crying out in the wilderness.
Your ethnocentrism is once again showing. USA is not a barometer for ethics -- how convienient for you to ignore the countless unethical laws that have existed & were upheld by the majority in the past. If we are voices crying out in the wilderness it is because we are a very small minority standing up against a multi-billion dollar industry capable of lobbying against all reform efforts. But don't worry, progress is being done in spite of people who wish to remain willfully ignorant on the issues we speak of. Until then anyone can feel free to keep burying their head in the sand.
A good start for those who want me to accept their notion of "adoption reform" would be to get one out of the 50 states in this country to pass laws like they have in your beloved Australia. Asking for one out of fifty is not unreasonable. Than, you would be at least on your way to showing that these "ethical adoption standards" that you tout are winning at least minimal acceptance in the USA.
Until that happens, you are really just voices crying out in the wilderness.
Adoptee rights groups were responsible for the laws changing in Oregon, Rhode Island and Maine. Those states now grant adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates.
You ask for one, we give you three.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
