Over the past 20 years, 60,000 Russians have been adopted by Americans
This isn't anything but traficking of children across international boundaries. There's money involved - the American families have it, and the Russian adoption agencies/government agencies need it. Enough already.
Very true but it's not like Russians are lining up to adopt these children. From what I understand, only children Russians have turned down are even made available for international adoption. So while international adoption has a high probability to turn into a racket, for kids with physical and mental challenges I'd actually say that being adopted by foreigners is pretty much their only chance at decent care and a productive, happy life.
also it's not like it's so incredibly easy for Americans to adopt American orphans either. they make up so many bullshit excuses that it's no wonder people go to other countries in search of a child to adopt....not to mention that bio-mothers can sign all the paperwork saying they want to give up their children, then can turn around and take their child back, scammers who pretend to be pregnant, etc.
I find this comment incredibly problematic. Giving up a child is one of the most difficult decisions a person can make and there is nothing wrong or two-faced about thinking for a while that you might make it and then deciding in the end that it's not actually what is best for you or your child. Meanwhile, choosing to adopt from a foreign country specifically because the idea of birth parents having absolutely no rights is appealing to you makes you a pretty shitty person who really has no business raising an adopted child.
Isn't pretty harmful for the parents to do that, though? I mean, if you give up custodial rights to your child, they get adopted, a year or two goes by and you realize you've made a mistake so you take your child back -- that's pretty unfair to the child, I'd hazard.
I don't have statistics to back me up on this (though I do think that in most states you've only got like six months to stop the adoption before you lose all of your rights) but I'm pretty sure it's way more common for parents to decide at birth that they don't want to give their children up than it is for them to decide two years later that they want the kid back. I'm just always horrified by how many people will demonize birth parents for deciding that it's best if they keep their children, even if the child has never lived a single day with the prospective adoptive parents.
Edited because I really didn't like my wording in one part.
As pleasure_past has said, I don't think they let a birth parent change their mind after that long. I really want there to be as many protections in place as possible for birth parents, because I've read too often about organizations that actually bully low income women into giving up their children for a better life, and it bothers me a great deal.
"Raised with"? At the absolute worst, you've got a few months after the child is born before the adoption is finalized. I won't pretend it's an easy situation where no one is going to be hurt, but I'd say it's far shittier to refuse the birth parents their rights to their own child.
Maybe this is specific to local laws but a situation concerning this happened in my family a few years ago because an adoption took about a year and a half to be finalized.
If the adoption hasn't been finalized then the birth parents are still the legal parents, though. I'm sorry for your family but to be honest I don't see any moral way of preventing that sort of situation and I'm going to continue to have problems with the idea that it's a great idea to adopt from abroad specifically because poor birth mothers in developing nations don't have any rights.
I think there has to be something in between not giving birth parents any rights and allowing a child over a year old to be taken from the family they've already bonded with, is all I'm saying.
Finalizing the adoption will prevent that. I don't know the specifics in the situation with your family, so I don't know why that didn't happen and I don't know what you want me to say right now. I do think it would be a major violation of the birth parents' rights to tell them they couldn't resume custody of their child when it still legally was their child.
Also, adoption by nature requires taking a child away from at least one parent they've already bonded with. I'm not saying that makes what happened to your family okay or that it means that it didn't hurt your family or the child, but I think it's problematic to frame the discussion that way without acknowledging that the child was also returned to someone they'd previously bonded with and been taken away from.
This isn't anything but traficking of children across international boundaries. There's money involved - the American families have it, and the Russian adoption agencies/government agencies need it. Enough already.
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also it's not like it's so incredibly easy for Americans to adopt American orphans either. they make up so many bullshit excuses that it's no wonder people go to other countries in search of a child to adopt....not to mention that bio-mothers can sign all the paperwork saying they want to give up their children, then can turn around and take their child back, scammers who pretend to be pregnant, etc.
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Edited because I really didn't like my wording in one part.
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Also, adoption by nature requires taking a child away from at least one parent they've already bonded with. I'm not saying that makes what happened to your family okay or that it means that it didn't hurt your family or the child, but I think it's problematic to frame the discussion that way without acknowledging that the child was also returned to someone they'd previously bonded with and been taken away from.
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