Is International Adoption Ethical?
Let me get this out of the way: international adoption has not always been done well. It has harmed biological families, adoptees, and adoptive parents. Sometimes it was due to intentional deception on the part of those who work on adoption and were entrusted with the well-being of children, and while rare, these stories are obviously sensational and get a lot of attention. More often, the harm has come because adoptive professionals and adoptive parents were ignorant about much of what an adoptee experiences, and didn't fully understand just how traumatic it is to lose one's birth family, no matter how young a child is. Ignorance is not an excuse, and I don't defend the many wounds caused by international adoption- but I also don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. Foreign aid has been done poorly in the past, but do we just stop doing foreign aid altogether? No, we find better, holistic and truly helpful ways to do it. I firmly believe there are ways to do international adoption ethically, and children for whom international adoption is the best remaining option when others have been exhausted.
Leaving our daughter's foster home with a very tiny, very scared kid
There is often a perception that if a child's biological family just had more money, the child wouldn't be placed for adoption, and certainly in some cases that is true. In some countries placing children for international adoption, financial hardship is the primary reason children are not with their biological families. More should be done so that isn't the case, and there are many great organizations working in this area of family preservation. However, in many countries it is often much more complex than just poverty. Children in other countries are unable to be with their biological families for many of the same reasons that children in the US are: mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, neglect, abuse, the stigma of single parenthood, sickness, cultural bias around disability (of the parent or the child), poverty- the list goes on. I've read hundreds of files of children placed for international adoption, and families were usually facing multiple of the factors listed above. Simply throwing more money at their situation was not going to solve it.
However, as with all cases where money is involved, there are those who take advantage of a situation, so nations decided to institute regulations to protect biological families and children, and ensure the children who were being adopted internationally did not have other options to grow up in a family. The Hague Convention on Adoption was written in 1993 and created regulations and standards for international adoption. The Hague Convention is somewhat controversial as some people feel its regulations have made international adoption too slow and cumbersome, and that children and families suffer as a result. That is true, but it's also true that children and families suffered when there wasn't enough regulation, and children were trafficked or exploited. While it's imperfect, my opinion is that international adoption is better on the Hague Convention than without it, though I hope improvements will be made in the future.
A country has to sign on to this Hague Convention, and not all countries that do international adoption have signed up. I don't think it inherently means a country's adoption program is bad or unethical just because they haven't ratified the Hague Convention (ie. Taiwan hasn't signed but they design their practices to follow Hague standards), however, if a country isn't a Hague signatory I would caution anyone to scrutinize their practices and policies before beginning an adoption.
One of the primary tenets of the Hague Convention is that a child has a right to grow up in their country and culture of origin, but this need does not trump a child's right to a permanent family. This means there is a hierarchy of care when a child, for whatever reason, isn't in the care of their biological parents, called the subsidiarity principle:
1. Biological parents- when a child isn't living with their biological parents, the first question that should be asked is: can we fix that? If a child was removed due to addiction or mental illness, can a parent be given medical care to overcome that? If a family placed a child in an orphanage due to financial hardship, can they be connected to resources that will help them gain stability? If a child was found abandoned, a search needs to be done to see if their parents can be found.
2. Biological relatives- this may seem obvious, but if a child can't remain with their mother and/or father, the next best choice is extended family, maybe aunts or uncles, or grandparents, or even an older sibling. Foster care in the US operates this way, and it should be the same for children in other countries.
3. Domestic adoption- if there are no biological relatives who can or will care for a child, then the next best alternative is a family in their country of origin. Many countries that have traditionally placed many children internationally have growing domestic adoption numbers, including China, South Korea, and Ukraine. Typically an effort must be made to find a family domestically, sometimes for a set period of time or while a child is a certain age, before they are eligible for international adoption.
4. International adoption- for some children, even after looking at the three previous options, they are still without a permanent family, and the only alternative left in their country of origin is an institution, or maybe a foster family. The best orphanage or foster family is not a replacement for a permanent family, and so we turn to the last resort for these children- international adoption. These children are typically over the age of two years old (and usually well above that), often boys, and very frequently have a diagnosed medical or developmental need. It's also common for children to be in need of adoption together with one or more siblings. Even for countries that have increased domestic adoption over the past several years, children that fall into these categories are not often chosen by domestic families. In India, for example, there are about 10,000 couples and singles waiting to be matched with a child for adoption, so you might think, why is there a need for international adoption? The vast majority of those families are only open to a child under two, usually a girl, and nearly always only a child who is medically healthy and developmentally typical. Out of thousands of domestic adoption placements in India in 2017, only 2% were considered special needs, but nearly all the international adoptions from India to other countries were considered special needs. India designates a hierarchy even beyond what the Hague Convention requires, and when it comes to international adoption, Indian citizens living abroad are prioritized first when placing children, and only if there is no Indian family in India or overseas is a child eligible to be adopted by non-Indian families. In practice, that means all international adoptions from India to non-Indian families are considered "special needs," either because the child has a medical or developmental diagnosis, is part of a sibling group, or is older (typically age seven and up).
Now the tricky part is, just how long do you wait before you decide it's time for that last resort? How many times do you try to reunify with biological parents? How long do you search for a domestic adoptive family while a child is waiting in institutional care, which is known to be damaging to their health, growth and development? Weeks, months, years? The Hague convention allows each country to interpret the guidelines as they choose, so it is up to each country to make that determination. This piece by attorney Chad Turner does an excellent job explaining some of the ways the subsidiarity principle has been misinterpreted or applied incorrectly, for those who are further interested in reading more.
I'm not going to share any details of our daughter's story, because that is hers to share, but I will say we are confident that everything possible was done to give her the opportunities listed here, and that by the time we came along, we (as imperfect as we are) were the best possible option. I'm so grateful that we were, but I still acknowledge all she lost when we adopted her. Because we know that international adoption means losing the chance to grow up in their birth culture, part of an ethical adoption means adoptive families need to be proactive in giving their child all possible opportunities to stay connected to that culture.
I don't pretend to know everything about international adoption, and I acknowledge that I may be wrong, or may look back in the future and feel differently, but I do feel international adoption can be done well for the children who really need it.
However, as with all cases where money is involved, there are those who take advantage of a situation, so nations decided to institute regulations to protect biological families and children, and ensure the children who were being adopted internationally did not have other options to grow up in a family. The Hague Convention on Adoption was written in 1993 and created regulations and standards for international adoption. The Hague Convention is somewhat controversial as some people feel its regulations have made international adoption too slow and cumbersome, and that children and families suffer as a result. That is true, but it's also true that children and families suffered when there wasn't enough regulation, and children were trafficked or exploited. While it's imperfect, my opinion is that international adoption is better on the Hague Convention than without it, though I hope improvements will be made in the future.
A country has to sign on to this Hague Convention, and not all countries that do international adoption have signed up. I don't think it inherently means a country's adoption program is bad or unethical just because they haven't ratified the Hague Convention (ie. Taiwan hasn't signed but they design their practices to follow Hague standards), however, if a country isn't a Hague signatory I would caution anyone to scrutinize their practices and policies before beginning an adoption.
One of the primary tenets of the Hague Convention is that a child has a right to grow up in their country and culture of origin, but this need does not trump a child's right to a permanent family. This means there is a hierarchy of care when a child, for whatever reason, isn't in the care of their biological parents, called the subsidiarity principle:
1. Biological parents- when a child isn't living with their biological parents, the first question that should be asked is: can we fix that? If a child was removed due to addiction or mental illness, can a parent be given medical care to overcome that? If a family placed a child in an orphanage due to financial hardship, can they be connected to resources that will help them gain stability? If a child was found abandoned, a search needs to be done to see if their parents can be found.
2. Biological relatives- this may seem obvious, but if a child can't remain with their mother and/or father, the next best choice is extended family, maybe aunts or uncles, or grandparents, or even an older sibling. Foster care in the US operates this way, and it should be the same for children in other countries.
3. Domestic adoption- if there are no biological relatives who can or will care for a child, then the next best alternative is a family in their country of origin. Many countries that have traditionally placed many children internationally have growing domestic adoption numbers, including China, South Korea, and Ukraine. Typically an effort must be made to find a family domestically, sometimes for a set period of time or while a child is a certain age, before they are eligible for international adoption.
4. International adoption- for some children, even after looking at the three previous options, they are still without a permanent family, and the only alternative left in their country of origin is an institution, or maybe a foster family. The best orphanage or foster family is not a replacement for a permanent family, and so we turn to the last resort for these children- international adoption. These children are typically over the age of two years old (and usually well above that), often boys, and very frequently have a diagnosed medical or developmental need. It's also common for children to be in need of adoption together with one or more siblings. Even for countries that have increased domestic adoption over the past several years, children that fall into these categories are not often chosen by domestic families. In India, for example, there are about 10,000 couples and singles waiting to be matched with a child for adoption, so you might think, why is there a need for international adoption? The vast majority of those families are only open to a child under two, usually a girl, and nearly always only a child who is medically healthy and developmentally typical. Out of thousands of domestic adoption placements in India in 2017, only 2% were considered special needs, but nearly all the international adoptions from India to other countries were considered special needs. India designates a hierarchy even beyond what the Hague Convention requires, and when it comes to international adoption, Indian citizens living abroad are prioritized first when placing children, and only if there is no Indian family in India or overseas is a child eligible to be adopted by non-Indian families. In practice, that means all international adoptions from India to non-Indian families are considered "special needs," either because the child has a medical or developmental diagnosis, is part of a sibling group, or is older (typically age seven and up).
Now the tricky part is, just how long do you wait before you decide it's time for that last resort? How many times do you try to reunify with biological parents? How long do you search for a domestic adoptive family while a child is waiting in institutional care, which is known to be damaging to their health, growth and development? Weeks, months, years? The Hague convention allows each country to interpret the guidelines as they choose, so it is up to each country to make that determination. This piece by attorney Chad Turner does an excellent job explaining some of the ways the subsidiarity principle has been misinterpreted or applied incorrectly, for those who are further interested in reading more.
I'm not going to share any details of our daughter's story, because that is hers to share, but I will say we are confident that everything possible was done to give her the opportunities listed here, and that by the time we came along, we (as imperfect as we are) were the best possible option. I'm so grateful that we were, but I still acknowledge all she lost when we adopted her. Because we know that international adoption means losing the chance to grow up in their birth culture, part of an ethical adoption means adoptive families need to be proactive in giving their child all possible opportunities to stay connected to that culture.
I don't pretend to know everything about international adoption, and I acknowledge that I may be wrong, or may look back in the future and feel differently, but I do feel international adoption can be done well for the children who really need it.
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