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Archive for the ‘Adoption News’ Category

2007: Not a good year for adoption

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption, The United Nations on December 29, 2007| 13 Comments »

As 2007 wraps, organizations from the U.S. Government to the United Nations to every news provider on the planet are collecting data, crunching numbers and trying to find tidy ways to package the year for presentation to the world sometime after the calendar ticks over.

Already established and making headlines, the unsurprising revelation that the number of the world’s orphans finding adoptive American families has dropped significantly. What that means in the grand scheme of time passing and evolving humanity is debate fodder.

According to this report from Federal News Radio, there were 15 percent fewer international adoptions in 2007 than over the two years previous. From China alone adoptions have plummeted from 7,906 children in 2005, to 6,493 in 2006, to only 5,453 this year. With UNICEF figures calculating Chinese orphan numbers at somewhere around 20,600,000 and growing, the ratio of chance-of-family to no-chance is miniscule and shrinking.

Tightening of requirements for families hoping to adopt from China has had a negative impact. Automatic refusal now the case for people who are overweight, bearing a facial disfigurement, with hearing problems or treating depression, among other such arbitrary reasons for rejection, has eliminated thousands of potential homes for Chinese-born children.

Cultivation of a negative image of adoption from Guatemala has also served to cut the number of prospective adoptive families, and as other countries present viable options to families and children alike, they too come under fire.

The length of time it takes to complete an adoption has expanded greatly, resulting in increasing stresses on families as they fall in love with children they will not meet for possibly years while serving to sentence these same children to whatever hardship their pre-family life will bring for as long as the process takes.

Some hail this downward trend in Americans adopting from other countries as a positive step, seeing international adoption as a form of either cultural genocide, neocolonialism, unwelcome immigration into the USA, or a market-driven greed machine perpetuated by traffickers.

UNICEF, for example, takes the position that international adoption should begin to be considered only as a “last resort”, a stance many consider to be less child-focused than is healthy that results in masses of children falling through the cracks and living their entire lives in institutions or on the streets. (Or in the case of Romanian kids who lost the option of international adoption completely, under the streets.)

Dr. Elizabeth Bartholet, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Child Advocacy Program (CAP) at Harvard Law School, is quoted as finding the decreasing numbers of children internationally adopted as “totally depressing” and says, “UNICEF is a major force. They’ve played a major role in jumping on any country sending large number of kids abroad, identifying it as a problem, rather than a good thing.”

Those with views similar to Dr. Bartholet understand that a reduction in the number of adopted children implies little more than fewer children finding families, while genocide, colonialism, greed and trafficking saw healthy growth in 2007.

Where the numbers will be in December 2008 is anybody’s guess, and with estimates putting the global count of orphans at around 200,000,000 each child finding a safe and loving home will remove the burden resting on the shoulders of the others … just a bit.

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No power at all

Posted in Adoption, Adoption News, Island life, Seychelles, tagged , on December 5, 2007| Leave a Comment »

I have so much I need to write about today, but so little time. We’ve had power cut … AGAIN … and this one lasted all bloody day. The impact of this sort of inconvenience is the blog equivalent of a twelve-hour snow storm when the only plow driver is plowed; by the time he sobers up, stuff is piled high as the rafters and it’s going to take days to dig out.

In an attempt at fairness to Marley of Bastard Nation, I need to spend some time on the site to check out her assertion that the group is not anti-adoption, but rather simply proponents of open records. I’m suspecting I’ll find that to be the case, and I may have to admit that jumping on that bandwagon in yesterday’s post could have been a move inspired by her general grumpiness toward children altogether witnessed often on AltAdopt and other places she gleefully casts little ones as the immature life form they can be.

I’ll get back to y’all on this over the next couple of days.

There are so many more topics for the day, but I’ll leave you with just this one out of the UK about a couple that just won a case in The European Court of Human Rights.

The British Home Office was taken to court to claim damages when a murder serving time and his wife, met and married while he’s been in jail, were not allowed to do the AI dance … a pas de deux possible from different counties.

They turned to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming a violation of their “right to respect for private and family life” and “right to marry and found a family”, both guaranteed by the Human Rights Convention.

Anyone else thinking this “rights” business can go a bit far?

That’s it for today. Fingers are crossed for tomorrow to be a day of electricity … and I ain’t talking thrills, just a dim bulb or two and enough juice to get fruit bat in charge back to cranking the Internet connection.

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Open records, gay adoption, and “Depakote babies”

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, International Adoption, tagged , , , , on December 4, 2007| 2 Comments »

A couple of interesting articles in today’s news take a bit of a different slant on familiar themes, and I’m thinking both will be getting a good look here.

First, this opinion piece out of Des Moines has inspired an unsurprising backlash of comments, all immediately recognizable in intent and history.

Open records for adoptees is the opening volley in the piece, but it’s anti-adoption pure and simple that is the target.

Fair-minded and informative, the piece has the temerity … and that is the first impression when such thoughts are actually written down and published … to take Concerned United Birthparents, Bastard Nation and the American Adoption Congress to task and suggest that much of their raison d’etre has less to do with registries, being opposed to the very thought of mutual consent, but rather nothing less than working to force an end to adoption completely.

Media sensationalism has led many to conclude that all parties in adoption are searching. Yet statistics in states with registries tell the opposite story. A study out of the Annenberg School of Communications found that the media exaggerated by 18 times the number of actual “searchers.”

The anti-adoption forces have enjoyed far greater success on the social/media front due to the unwillingness of reporters to dig beneath the surface and explore the agenda of these search advocacy groups. The one notable exception is Lucinda Franks in her New Yorker article around the time of the “Baby Jessica” case, when she exposed the role of these groups in the case. In addition, stories emphasizing grief, loss and pathology due to so-called identity confusion make far more interesting copy than those of content, secure adoptive families.

Bastard Nation is singled out as an organization the promotes, “the portrayal of adoption as a deceptive, hurtful and even pathological institution,” and the point is made that the “emphasis on adoption as setting in motion a lifetime of grief and loss has had a profound effect on adoptive placement in the United States.”

Call it as you see it, certainly, but a take like this, written together by an adoptee and an adoptive parent, feels like a breath of fresh air. The mainstream media running anything that hasn’t been ground to a miserable pulp by those invested in misery may be taken as a sign that the public eye has not yet been totally blinded or blackened.

From Canada, this story on an upcoming TV documentary takes a look at views on gay parenting in that country, and follows the efforts of a lesbian couple to adopt.

One hurdle in their process led the couple to file a human rights complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission that is still pending, but the government did change its policy on adopting from the US in 2006.

And a couple of important bits from blogland …

Here is some serious information on kids with Fetal Anti-Convulsant Syndrome (FACS), or Fetal Valproate Syndrome (FVS), so called, “Depakote babies”, from a mom who has spent years trying to figure out what her child was suffering from. She has a follow-up here.

And if you’re interested in open records laws, here’s an update from North Carolina on what’s happening there.

And, for what it’s worth, I am not against open records. In fact I’m all for everyone being open about everything and doing away with secrets altogether. With this POV, I wish there was a heck of a lot more honesty involved when it comes to specific issues.

Marley of Bastard Nation makes no secret of the fact that she’s not big on adoption … or children in general, for that matter … and although she’s not someone I’d want to spend a weekend with (and I’m quite sure the feeling would be mutual if she ever gave it any thought), I respect her non-namby-pamby-ness. It’s those who dress their negative stance on adoption as “reform” or “family preservation”, and yes, “open records” wooly rhetoric that shouldn’t be trusted.

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African orphans and Ethica statement

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, International Adoption, tagged , , on December 3, 2007| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been working today on an article about the reduced number of international adoptions in the world in 2007, so when this from the BBC popped up, it demanded some attention.

Powerful visuals were created when kids orphaned by AIDS in Mozambique were given cameras and asked to photograph their lives. Subject choices are always so interesting when children are given a chance to pick representational bits of their world, and these shots prove that all over again.

As is far too often the case, there is so little possibility of the option of international adoption ever reaching kids in Maputo or any part of Mozambique that hope of such a cicumstance must never trickle down to kids like the ones involved in this project.

According to the US State Department’s site on international adoption, there have been only eight children from Mozambique adopted by Americans in the last five years. This is, no doubt, at least partially due to the residency requirements the country imposes that rule out any family that can’t relocate and become residents for the duration of the adoption process.

That’s one way to make sure the children remain trapped.

For more on the drop in adoption numbers, this story from the Daily Herald of Chicago sums things up, as does this AP story that ads quotes from one of my personal heros, Dr. Elizabeth Bartholet, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Child Advocacy Program (CAP) at Harvard Law School.

And speaking of international adoption, Ethica has released a pdf of their comments on DHS’s regulations for the Hague. It’s well worth a read, and I’ll be most interested in thoughts you might have on their take.

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Adoption news: back in the swing of things

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, International Adoption, Older Parent Adoption on December 2, 2007| 3 Comments »

No matter that I’ve just been burnt to a crisp by a faction of the adoption “community”, I can’t stay away. Having not posted any adoption-related news in days, there is so much catching up to do!

Authorities in Toronto are asking for the return of a 5-year-old girl who has been taken from her legal guardian by her birth parents and has disappeared.

Apparently, the child, removed from parental custody in March, has a medical condition that needs attention and there are concerns that the birth parents will not attend to her needs.

Here’s a strange story out of Kentucky from Fox … is that a redundancy? … about foster parents who lost their license after refusing to give up the part of their religious observance that involves the handling of live rattlesnakes.

You know … I don’t have much of a problem with that, actually, but it’s turning into an issue of rights as the couple sues the agency claiming a violation of their constitutional rights.

Go ahead and wrap a few rattlers if you like, I say, but it better appear on your homestudy!

There’s a spate of stories on efforts to get parents to straighten up and fly right. This one may not be available for long, as I can’t get the link generator to give me one that will last a lifetime, but is worth a read while it’s up.

Titled “Teen Parent Maturing Into the Role”, it is about just that … a fifteen-year-old with a year-old baby doing her best to raise her son and herself at the same time. She has goals and ambition and has a hard road ahead.

I did that myself, and I wish her the best.

From Scotland, we have this look at efforts there aimed at helping young parents kick their drug and alcohol problems.

The issue was blamed for the city council receiving a shocking HMIE report into its services aimed at protecting vulnerable youngsters. Inspectors claimed that the council was too slow and disorganised in the way it removed at-risk children from potentially harmful situations.

Councillor Marilyne MacLaren, the city’s children and families leader, said the service was stretched because of the rising number of referrals of children whose parents had drug and alcohol problems.

The plan is to throw £30,000 (almost $62,000) at the problem in one city, in addition to the £396,000 (more than $814,000) annually spent, focusing on issues of homelessness and establishing a “stable home life” that will “make it easier for them to stay away from drugs and alcohol.”

On somewhat the same topic, an opinion piece out of Boston suggests that a ban on spanking being discussed in Massachusetts these days isn’t the way to go because, “parents need help, not bans.”

I’d say the issue is more that children need help, and banning a swat on the butt from a loving parent does nothing to alleviate the beatings and abuse far too many kids suffer daily. In other words, is everyone missing the point on this?

The government of Japan is about to get into the swing of foster care, hoping that allowing foster parents to care for kids in some numbers will shift the focus from institutions to family environments.

Under the new system, one foster family will be able to take care of five or six children who are not able to live with their parents. Unlike in children’s institutions, where many children are taken care of, the system is expected to provide more individual care and a homelike environment for such children.

According to the ministry, there are about 40,000 children who need homes for such reasons as ailing parents, suffering abuse or being orphaned. About 90 percent of such children live in orphanages or baby homes, while 9 percent of them live with foster parents.

The new opposition leader in Australia has come out in favor of removing discrimination in many areas that relate to gay couples in the country, but will not support gay marriage, adoption or access to fertility services.

“Every Australian, as far as taxation, social security and those things, should be treated equally.”

But he rejected going further, declaring marriage as only between a man and a woman.

“It is the foundation of our society. I do not support gay marriage. I do not support gay adoption. I do not support gay IVF,” he said.

In other words, equal, but not that equal.

A young boy in China spent some time collecting bottles to cash in and donated the money to kids in AIDS villages in Henan.

Good for him, but with no good deed getting by without spin, he was awarded a national award on CCTV (China’s English language television news channel … the terrible propaganda machine we get here every day now.). Not big on subtle in that part of the world.

On the older parent front, this from the Sunday Times in London, a look at what can be the hell of fertility treatments past the age of 40, and the reality of how it works, or doesn’t.

I am put out by the way childless women of my age (41) have started talking breezily about IVF as though it were a procedure not dissimilar to Botox. IVF involves artificially inducing the menopause and then reversing it. It’s hardcore. You don’t just go and have it done in your lunch hour and then forget about it, and from what I observe it puts incredible stress on relationships (and sex lives).

The point seems to be to have your kids earlier. That works, but so does adopting them, even after your eggs have withered.

If you’re worried about getting along with your kids when you’re really old, a new study from Purdue University has found that relationships between parents and kids improve with aging.

“Some children reported pestering their parents more about health issues and being unsure if parents were ignoring them,” Fingerman said. “While we expected that children might feel demanded upon or stressed by their parents’ health declines, most of the participants focused on positive changes, such as trying harder to spend time together or talking more or feeling closer and appreciated.”

That’s good to know.

And finally, those with pre-birth matching might want to try to encourage an expectant mother to eat her greens, and not just for good health. New studies are showing that children born to broccoli-eating women tend to like broccoli, and that counts across the vegetable board.

You can also get a propensity toward veggies going by eating them yourself, then doing the adoptive breastfeeding thing.

If these tactics aren’t possible, you may just have to adjust to the fact that promoting the consuming of the green and leafy will forever be a mission. That’s been my fate, as Sam does not consider the possibility that anything green … other than lime Jell-O and Lifesavers … is food. I think it’s a safe bet that his birth mother didn’t come across many brussels sprouts during her pregnancy, and he does show no aversion at all at the idea of eating fried spiders.

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