Birth Parents Blog, First Parents Blog - How can Adoptive Parents Achieve Ethical Adoptions?

06/29/07

How can Adoptive Parents Achieve Ethical Adoptions?

Posted by : Jan Baker in Birth-First Parent Blog at 09:17 am , 369 words, 153 views
Categories: Ethics

An ethical adoption is not a cut and dried agreed upon entity. Although there are many items that most of us agree on, there is no total agreement on exactly what an ethical adoption entails. These are some random thoughts I feel might help people who are concerned about ethical issues in adoption.

1) Do not support unethical agencies. Be suspicious of agencies that promise a newborn in a short amount of time, and brag that none of the pregnant women who come to their agency change their minds.

2) Do not show up at an agency and demand a white Caucasian baby as soon as possible. Agencies need to fill their demands. If they do not have enough white babies to supply the demand, they recruit women to relinquish.

3) Report any shady practices during the course of your adoptions. You would hope that others would so the same for you, so do it for them.

4) Use your best efforts to ensure that a placing mother is well-informed and not pressured. More on this later.

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5) Educate yourself thoroughly about agencies and practices. Talk not only to adoptive parents who have used an agency, but also birth parents. You might receive two entirely different stories about the same agency.

6) Avoid specific adoption practices which can contribute to pressure for a pregnant woman or new mother.

Do I believe that all the onus rests on adoptive parents to ensure ethical adoptions? Do I lay all the problems in adoption at the foot of adoptive parents? Of course not, posts to follow will include what birth parents and others can do to contribute to ethical adoptions. What is your best advice to adoptive parents to insure ethical adoptions?

I would like to specifically mention blogger Erin's thoughts on adoption. Erin is one adoptive parent who does mention ethics often in discussions about how to adopt and I commend her for doing so. I know that the ranks of adoptive parents who support ethical adoptions are growing as well, and I am happy to note that is the case.

Further Reading:

Ethics in Adoption - Part 4

How to Choose an Adoption Program

The popularity of Ethiopian Adoption

I need help too.

Photo by Jan Baker 2007

4 comments

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: erin_d_a [Member]

Something I did in our adoption, and am doing in a current situation is to make sure we have a file folder of social resources should mom choose to parent her child. I know it is an emotional risk to consider the thought of mom parenting, but I think that as adoptive families we SHOULD consider that. I don't trust social workers, even the most well intentioned of them, to make sure that mom has parenting resources. We can hand mom the folder with names, phone numbers, and contact information for assistance if she chooses to parent. It takes about ten minutes online to get a comprehensive list together. I've known women who have placed, who wouldn't have had they had just a few phone numbers so they could get welfare, housing etc... It isn't fair to our children if we don't encourage their parents to find a way to parent them.

Permalink 06/29/07 @ 18:15

Comment from: Jan Baker [Member]

· http://birthparents.adoptionblogs.com/

Erin, I think that is a fantastic idea. Including Heather's booklet is something I think I recall Deb offered to the birth mothers of her children.

You don't trust social workers? Hmm, I must admit I do not have much faith in most adoption social workers either.

Permalink 06/29/07 @ 19:01

Comment from: erin_d_a [Member]

Heathers booklet is AWESOME!!! I actually have printed off a couple and keep them with me because since I speak out about adoption in my community I often encounter people who come to me for adoption advice.

And no, I don't trust the social workers/counselors at agencies. While I think the vast majority of them are doing what they think is right and best, they also have a vested interest in seeing a mom place. No matter what, if they are working for an agency that receives money, they need to see a certain number of women place every year. So we must take some of the burden onto our shoulders as adoptive parents. It sucks that we have to do someone elses job, but I don't see another option.

Permalink 06/29/07 @ 20:05

Comment from: soblessed [Member]

I actually thought the social worker who handled domestic adoptions in our office was great. She was able to answer for me a lot of the questions I had about birthmothers and really helped to point out some of the things that were hard to look at. She did this for me even though we made it clear that we felt called to international, not domestic, adoption. She may be unusual, though. Seems that way from what I've heard in the community.

I think your idea of distributing information on additional resources for those who choose to parent is a good one. As has been mentioned, lots of women apply a "permanent" solution to a "temporary" problem.

Permalink 06/30/07 @ 09:05

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