Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Ethics in Adoption?

Are adoptions in ET still ethical?  Every few months some new info comes out about an unethical agency.  Last time it was BFAS now it is CWA.  It leads me to wonder if we are doing the right thing?  

2 comments:

The Busters said...

Stories like that make my stomach hurt. I was reading People magazine and read about a case here in the US that also made my stomach churn. The birth mother has a blog and the whole thing just upsets me and I am not sure what to think of all of it. http://bringperihome.blogspot.com/2009/09/clarifications-from-people-magazine.html
So I guess all that to say that it isn't just ET but it happens here at home as well. I just have to trust that we did our research and are with a great agency that does what they can to first reunite the child with the birth family. It is scary but there are probably tons more cases of adoptions that went through the proper channels rather than corrupt ones.

Roscoe and Julia Richardson said...

To the defense of Ethiopia govt, they did suspend adoptions of all abandoned kiddos from Addis in May in order to investigate this sort of corruption. The court system now is also very tough for relinquished cases - requiring testimony for birth parents who relinquish kiddos - and the judge cna then NOT pass the child if he deems coercion took place. Many families with our agency had to go to court 2, 3 or even up to 7 times in order to provide enough documentation that the judge deemed the adoption legitimate. So yes, there is corruption but part of the reason that ET timeline from Referral to travel is increasing is due to more rigorous documentation of abandoned and relinquished children - a good step in the right direction I think. I do hate how the media tends to focus on the few negative scenarios in adoption while ignoring the millions of miracle stories and ignoring the truly destitute situations some of these children face. Just offering another perspective.

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