I received a nice message from an adoptive mother who found this blog. I do try to be realistic about adoption. But for adoption, I simply would not exist. Both of my parents were adoptees. Also, both of my sisters gave up babies for adoption – both of these now grown individuals – a niece and a nephew – have met the family who’s genetic inheritance is part of their own. I am glad for these reunions.
An adoptee I respect wrote – I have recently been reminded of the importance to distinguish adoption from the industry and criminal practices that have confused and conflated the two. To regain clarity, it does start with recognizing this distinction between adoption and the industry.
He continues – The challenge comes when we start dismantling the way modern adoption works. The very definition states “the fact or act of legally taking someone else’s child and raising it as your own.” This definition does not identify orphaned child, falsifying birth records, coercive tactics of separating the child from their origins, baby farming, child harvesting, colonization, cultural eradication, and war crimes, leaving it conveniently vague as “legally taking” which all the above has been identified as adoption.
Domestically, foster care is used as a means to adopt, where states have been incentivized to remove children and terminate parental rights which makes them eligible for adoption. Again, this is due to the industry and practices of recruitment, supply and demand, and sustainability of a waning human market.
The majority of laws and policies are focused on making these practices more streamlined and ethical. Curious why this is an issue when it comes to child protection and child welfare, especially since it has been well documented for generations. Books like The Child Catchers, The Girls Who Went Away, American Baby, Relinquished among others have brought up adoption as an industry in great detail.
The problem that remains is how the US continues to be a stronghold for the industry. Those in leadership positions have used pro-industry propaganda: “adoption is an option” and “best interest of the child because it gives them a better life” – continuing to conflate adoption with the industry and its criminal practices.
I have been saying that we need to call it for what it really is… only then can we begin to offer solutions. The first step to problem solving is identifying the problem. To your point, adoption is not the problem, it’s how adoptions are being conducted. Removing children from living parents and relatives through force, threat of force, abduction, kidnapping, coercion, deception, falsifying documents, transporting and “rehoming” and exploitation for profit are all elements of another term: trafficking. Sadly, the vast majority simply refuse to acknowledge this despite the overwhelming evidence. Even with admitting the truth, people argue “but not all adoptions are trafficking” – but we’re no longer talking about adoptions at this point are we?
I want also to share this from a kinship adoptive parent – I feel like a lot of this comes from our consumer mentality (as a nation). Because we’re such capitalists, we think that money is what makes one home better than another. Instead of supporting mothers who are struggling, we often perpetuate the lie that their child will be better with someone who can afford to give them more. So little of the industry centers around children and what’s best for them. Over and over, studies show that mom/family is best whenever possible, but our foster and adoption system don’t follow science.
The adoptee above responded to this with – children (born and unborn) are the focus of the industry as the products/commodities it’s selling. The propaganda diverts attention from this crime by focusing on the buyers and making it into a human rights issue of reproductive rights.
Missing Mom 