International Adoption

I?m well aware that some of the things I will state in this post are probably going to hit some sensitive nerves. Please keep in mind as you read it that these are my opinions only. I?m not bringing to light my opinions on the subject in order to persecute those who decide to adopt internationally. I?m only hoping that from the opinion and eyes of a birth mother that you will take this opinion into your collective understanding of adoption.

There have been a lot of waves around the adoption ?world? lately. Russia talked about closing down its borders to international adoptions, including those already in process or approved. Though I don?t believe Putin did what he did for any purposes other than as a political manipulation, I actually think that there are reasons for not adopting internationally.

It seems that there are a large number in the Christian community who use James 1:27 as a command to adopt, of sorts. James 1:27 says, ?Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself as being polluted by the world.? There is an argument that because single parenting isn?t as accepted in other countries as it is here and due to the well-known population control measures set forth in places like China that there are tons of children languishing in orphanages waiting for adoption. I?m not arguing against that. We?ve all seen the pictures and heard the accounts from people who have actually been to other countries and visited those orphanages. I read a blog post from a hopeful adoptive mother who has been approved to adopt a girl from Russia and doesn?t know if she?ll be able to bring that girl ?home? to the US. She says that this particular little girl has documents from her biological family stating that they do not want her and would be unable to care for her. My heart goes out to that little girl and all those in orphanages like her. But as Deanna Shrodes says of James 1:27 in this post, ?This is not a command to adopt. It is a command to care for.? (Please go read the post. It?s a great one.)

I?ve also heard of the falsified documents rampant in international adoptions. These falsified documents are not from the hopeful adoptive parents, but from the orphanages that house the children. I do not know, but it causes me to wonder if the little girl mentioned in the previous paragraph would actually have her biological family say that about her if they were asked directly by someone with no stake in whether their child gets adopted or not. We all know that documents get signed under coercion here in the US. We?ve read stories of biological mothers separated from their children who may have felt they signed the documents freely at the time they were signed but later felt as though they were robbed of their children. We have laws against signing legal documents under coercion. That?s why adoption documents are signed in the presence of a notary public who will testify that the signatures were not forced or manipulated. But there are no such laws in other countries, so there is nothing to protect those people involved at all. There is no way to prove that the documents were actually signed by the biological family and not just falsified to appease anyone interested in adopting the child mentioned. I?m not saying that I believe that there are no instances where the biological family of an orphan cannot be located, or where the biological family has made sworn statements saying that they cannot care for their child.

Adoption should not be about separation of that child from his or her biological family. I know in the US that we have a long way to go in changing our collective understanding of what adoption should be to include the idea of open adoption. I know that though the acceptance of the possibility of open adoption is more prevalent that there are still too many people who hold opinions that in order to have a successful adoption, the biological family should not be involved in that child?s life at all. So if adoption should be about not separating the child from his or her biological family but inclusion of that biological family in the definition of who that child is, than international adoption makes very little sense.

In order for an international adoption to occur, that child is not only separated from his or her biological family, but his or her country of origin. To me, that is the opposite of what adoption truly should be. I think I?ve related this little tidbit before, but it bears repeating. I heard a story about a birth mother panel for a bunch of hopeful adoptive parents. One of the hopeful adoptive parents piped up and said basically that she wanted to adopt internationally so that she wouldn?t have to deal with the birth parents. One of the birth moms on the panel replied that she would always have to deal with that child?s birth family in the form of that child whether she had an ongoing relationship with them or not. Adoption is borne of loss. The biological mother feels this loss on a daily basis, but so does the child. There have been documented studies done on adoptees that state that no matter how content they may be with the life they have and no matter how much they love their adoptive parents, they still feel that loss. Some people who have been adopted cope better with that loss than others. As a birth mom, I hope that in combination with the fact that Nick and I are still involved in her life that she will be among those who cope well with the loss of me and Nick raising her. But put yourself in the shoes of the child who not only feels abandoned by his or her biological family, but feels abandoned by his or her country of origin. Don?t you think those feelings might be magnified ten-fold?

So how might you help those children who have been orphaned without causing possible further damage? You can send the money that you would have spent on an international adoption to help the orphanages better care for the children housed there. You can involve yourself in aid societies that make charity trips to those same orphanages. Maybe you can even work to find the biological families of the children and try to help the families of those same children.

Even if all international adoptions were stopped tomorrow, there would be children in those countries that would fall through the cracks. There would be children that would live in orphanages their entire lives. But don?t we have children here that are orphans as well? Children that may not live in orphanages, but instead grow up and then age out of the foster care system? It?s always seemed to me that we should help our own country before reaching to help other countries. I don?t think that?s selfish to focus on the needs of the children in foster care over focusing on trying to adopt a child from another country. It also seems to me that if you believe in the Bible that helping children in foster care here and their biological families that you would be closer to following the intent of the Bible verse so frequently used to support adoption.

I?m not saying all international adoption is bad. I believe that there are very good people here who might adopt and will not only support but encourage their child to honor his or her country. I strongly hope that anyone considering international adoption that might happen upon this blog post would be among those people instead of those who might not be so willing to support their child?s heritage.

Source: http://www.musingmonika.com/international-adoption/

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