Feministe Asks Some Questions on Adoption and Feminism

Brigid at "Feministe" wants to know if adoption is a feminist issue.  Brigid asks:

How can or should we view adoption as a feminist issue? As a class, race, or disability issue? Whose rights stand to be compromised when adoption is or is not an available option?

Does every child have a right to be raised by the people whose genetic material helped create them?

Does every genetic parent have a right to raise their genetic children?

Do people who are unable (though biology or circumstance), or do not desire, to conceive children have a right to raise children?

If you believe adoption is problematic, what circumstances would make it less so?

My answer:

Adoption is a feminist issue. It treats one mother as being less worthy to parent than another because of her marital status or her income. Most unmarried, pregnant women in the 50′s-70′s were scolded, belittled, penalized, and ushered into maternity homes where their babies were taken from them. See “Wake up Little Susie” by Ricki Solinger and “The Girls Who Went Away” by Anne Fessler. Even now lower-income mothers are encouraged and praised to surrender their children to middle and upper class couples.

We can’t forget that adoptees are female too and their rights are overlooked and ignored. We are commodified in adoption, our “adoption fees” charged based on our age and other characteristics. We are institutionally discriminated against in 43 out of 50 states in adulthood.

Adoption is a class issue. Children are generally surrendered by impoverished families and adopted by wealthier families. What lower-income mothers are able to provide to their children is undervalued when compared to what can be provided through adoption, largely based on the societal notion that lower income families are irresponsible for reproducing. Adoption is too often favored above providing mothers with the resources and help to parent their children.

Adoption is also a race issue. Adopted children are often times raised in families that are post-racial, have not themselves experienced racism, and are not equipped to raise them to deal with racism or be leaders in their communities. Children of inter-country adoption lose not only their original home and family (many children in orphanages have living relatives who are too poor to take them home), but they lose their culture and original language too. 50% of inter-country adoptions are brought to the United States, a country that has huge race issues. See: http://yoonsblur.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-i-need-breaks-first-footage-of-my.html and http://johnraible.wordpress.com/

Ableism, sexism, adultism, classism, racism, the list goes on, these are huge issues in adoption. I would keep elaborating but this is precisely why I blog on adoption: because there’s too much to say.

Yes, every single child has a basic human right to be raised by his or her own natural (meaning biological) family, according to UNICEF and the UN’s “Rights of the Child.”

“Every child has the right to know and be cared for by his or her own parents, whenever possible. UNICEF believes that families needing support to care for their children should receive it.” — UNICEF

Yes, every parent has the basic human and constitutional right to parent their own child.

This does not mean that children should grow up in abusive households. This means that the right of families to stay together should be respected when and if at all possible. Situations of abuse being an obvious reason why staying together would not be possible.

Prospective adoptive parents have the right to be treated equally in the adoption process. Children who do not have parents and a family that can care for them have a right to receive a home and a family/caregivers who can. But no, no one has a “right” to adopt.

Adoption is incredibly problematic. What would make it less so? The billions that are spent on adoptions being put towards family preservation instead. Adequate social welfare programs being put in place so that orphanages are not used to manage dependency. Domestic adoptions being promoted as a way to provide truly needy children with homes. People should be encouraged to adopt one of the 120,000 children legally cleared for adoption in the U.S. foster care system who cost little to nothing to adopt. Amending and sealing of birth records needs to end. The money needs to be removed from adoption.

“Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis [in adoption] has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year . . .” United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, 2003.

Join the discussion here.