Adoption in the United States
Encyclopedia
Adopton in the United States is the legal act of adoption
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...

, of permanently placing a person under the age of 18 with a parent or parents other than the birth parents in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Overview

Domestic U.S. adoptions can fall into two types: agency and independent. Adoption agencies must be licensed by the state in which they operate. The U.S. government maintains a website, The Child Information Gateway, which lists every state's licensed agencies. There are both private and public adoption agencies. Private adoption agencies often focus on infant adoptions, while public adoption agencies typically help find homes for waiting children, many of them presently in foster care and in need of a permanent loving home. To assist in the adoption of waiting children, there is a U.S. government-affiliated website, Adopt US Kids, assisting in sharing information about these children with potential adoptive parents. The North American Council on Adoptable Children provides information on financial assistance to adoptive parents (called adoption subsidies) when adopting a child with special needs. Independent adoptions are usually arranged by attorneys and typically involve newborn children. Approximately 55% of all U.S. newborn adoptions are completed via independent adoption.

The 2000 census
United States Census, 2000
The Twenty-second United States Census, known as Census 2000 and conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2% over the 248,709,873 persons enumerated during the 1990 Census...

 was the first census in which adoption statistics were collected. The number of children awaiting adoption dropped from 132,000 to 118,000 during the period 2000 to 2004 broken link.

Foster care system

The United States has a system of foster care
Foster care
Foster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in the private home of a state certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent"....

 by which adults care for minor children who are not able to live with their biological parents. In fiscal year 2000, 150,703 foster children were adopted in the United States, many by their foster parents or relatives of their biological parents. The enactment of the Adoption and Safe Families Act
Adoption and Safe Families Act
The Adoption and Safe Families Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 19, 1997 after having been approved by the United States Congress earlier in the month....

 in 1997 has approximately doubled the number of children adopted from foster care in the United States.
If a child in the U.S. governmental foster care system is not adopted by the age of 18 years old, they are "aged out" of the system on their 18th birthday.

Wide impact

Adoption is changing the way people form families, as well as affecting the way society perceives the fundamental concepts of life such as nature vs. nurture and the role of biological relations with an adoptive family member. Because of changes in adoption over the last few decades – changes that include open adoption
Open adoption
Open adoption is an adoption in which the biological mother or parents and adoptive family know the identity of each other. In open adoption, the parental rights of biological parents are terminated, as they are in "closed adoptions" and the adoptive parents become the legal parents, yet the...

, gay adoption, international adoption
International adoption
International adoption is a type of adoption in which an individual or couple becomes the legal and permanent parents of a child that is a national of a different country...

s and trans-racial adoptions, and a focus on moving children out of the foster care
Foster care
Foster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in the private home of a state certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent"....

 system into adoptive families – the impact of adoption on the basic unit of society, the family, has been enormous. http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/survey/survey_summary.html As adoption expert Adam Pertman has said, “Suddenly there are Jews holding Chinese cultural festivals at synagogues, there are Irish people with their African American kids at St Patty's Day. This affects whole communities, and as a consequence our sense of who we are, what we look like, as a people, as individual peoples. These are profound lessons that adoption is teaching us.”

Trans-racial adoption

The adoption of children of one race by parents of another race, which began officially in the United States in 1948, has always generated controversy. The argument often comes down to opposing views as to who gets to decide what is the "best interest" of children. Critics of transracial adoption question whether White European American parents can effectively prepare children of color to deal with racism. Others wonder where the children raised by White parents will find social acceptance as adults. Testimony from many transracially adopted adults who grew up in White families illustrates the "in-between" status many adoptees feel, not belonging to or feeling comfortable in communities of color or among White society. Another source of controversy is the history of the widespread removal of children from families and communities of color, which has been shown by historians to have been a tool to regulate families and oppress communities, dating back to slavery times and during the now-discredited Indian Boarding School movement of the early twentieth century. Given this history of child removal, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) condemned transracial adoptions in 1972 in their historic Position Statement. In that paper, the NABSW equated the removal of African American children from their families of origin—and their placement in White homes—with "cultural genocide."

Pro-transracial adoption advocates argue that there are more white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...

 families seeking to adopt than there are minority families; conversely, there are more minority children available for adoption. This disparity often results in a lower cost to adopt children from ethnic minorities - usually through special adoption grants rather than fee discrimination. Many critics decry the exchange of money for children, whether as "fees for service" or otherwise, arguing that no children of any race should ever be for sale. Proponents point out practicality in the current systems. This situation is morally difficult because the adoptive families see adoption as a great benefit to trans-racially adopted children, while some minorities see it as an assault on their culture. In 2004, 26 percent of African-American children adopted from foster care were adopted trans-racially. Government agencies have varied over time in their willingness to facilitate trans-racial adoptions. "Since 1994, white prospective parents have filed, and largely won, more than two dozen discrimination lawsuits, according to state and federal court records." There is also a great need to place these children; in 2004 more than 45,000 African-American children were waiting to be adopted from foster care.

Americans have adopted more than 200,000 children from overseas in the past 15 years, half of whom come from Asia. This trend has helped lower the resistance to trans-racial adoptions in the United States, at least for Asian and Hispanic children, although there is still high demand for Caucasian children, who usually come from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

.

As the children adopted in the early days of the transracial adoption experiment have reached middle age, a growing chorus of voices from adult transracial adoptees has emerged. Their collective experience can be found in films, scholarly articles, memoirs, blogs, and numerous books on the subject.

Adoption reform

No sooner were US adoptions made secretive with original birth records sealed, than those adopted began to seek reform. Jean Paton, author of Breaking Silence and founder of Orphan Voyage in 1954, is regarded as the mother of adoption reform and reunification efforts. Jean Paton mentored adoptee Judith Land, "Adoption Detective: Memoir of an Adopted Child" during her adoption search. Florence Fisher organized The ALMA Society (Adoptees Liberation Movement Association) in 1972, Emma May Vilardi created International Soundex Reunion Registry (ISRR) in 1975, Lee Campbell and other birthmothers joined the fight for Open Records forming Concerned United Birthparents
Concerned United Birthparents
Concerned United Birthparents, Inc. is a non profit American organization that was founded in October 1976 by Lee Campbell, as a small group gathered to provide mutual support for birthparents, men and women who had surrendered children to adoption...

 (CUB) in 1976, and by the spring of 1979 representatives of 32 organizations from 33 states, Canada and Mexico gathered together in DC to establish the American Adoption Congress (AAC). TRIADOPTION® Library began keeping records in 1978 showing 52 search/support/reform organizations, by 1985 there were over 550 worldwide.TRIADOPTION Archives

Adoption Reform encompasses family preservation
Family preservation
Family preservation was the movement to help keep children at home with their families rather than in foster homes or institutions. This movement was a reaction to the earlier policy of family breakup, which pulled children out of unfit homes. Extreme poverty alone was seen as a justified reason...

, adoptees access to original birth certificates, birth and adoptive families having direct access to each other (open adoption
Open adoption
Open adoption is an adoption in which the biological mother or parents and adoptive family know the identity of each other. In open adoption, the parental rights of biological parents are terminated, as they are in "closed adoptions" and the adoptive parents become the legal parents, yet the...

) and all related records (open records).

The Adoption Triangle by Annette Baran, Reuben Pannor and Arthur Sorosky; Twice Born and Lost and Found by Betty Jean Lifton; I Would Have Searched Forever by Sandra Musser; The Adoption Searchbook: Techniques for Tracing People by Mary Jo Rillera; The Politics of Adoption by Mary Kathleen Benet; all published in the 1970s and still in print, were instrumental in examining and defining the foundation of reform. Adoption Books

As of February, 2009, 24 U.S. states have legal provisions for enforceable open adoption contact agreements.http://childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/cooperative.cfm. Each year additional states consider law changes that give persons separated by adoption access to information about themselves and each other. State Laws

Search and reunion

Many adopted people who were separated from their birth parents by adoption have a desire to reunite, and most would like family medical history information and access to any documents where they are mentioned. Often, birth parents who placed their infants want to reunite as well. In states which practice or have practiced confidential adoption, this has led to the creation of adoption reunion registries
Adoption reunion registry
An adoption reunion registry is a formal mechanism where adoptees and their birth family members can be reunited. Registries may be free or charge fees, be facilitated by non-profit organizations, government agencies or private businesses....

, and efforts to establish the right of adoptees to access their sealed records (for example, see AAC - American Adoption Congress
American Adoption Congress
The American Adoption Congress was created in the late 1970s as an umbrella organization by the search and support, adoption reform groups sprouting up across the United States, Canada and around the world. Initiated by Orphan Voyage founder, Jean Paton, people representing many groups gathered in...

, CUB - Concerned United Birthparents
Concerned United Birthparents
Concerned United Birthparents, Inc. is a non profit American organization that was founded in October 1976 by Lee Campbell, as a small group gathered to provide mutual support for birthparents, men and women who had surrendered children to adoption...

, Bastard Nation
Bastard Nation
Bastard Nation is a North American adult adoptee political advocacy and support organization. It was founded in 1996 by denizens of the Usenet newsgroup alt.adoption Shea Grimm, Damsel Plum, Marley Greiner and Lainie Petersen...

). Others join search and support groups, most of which are non-profit, or some hire investigative companies (see Adoption Search and Reunion) to locate birth families and adopted children.

International adoption

International adoption
International adoption
International adoption is a type of adoption in which an individual or couple becomes the legal and permanent parents of a child that is a national of a different country...

 refers to adopting a child from a foreign country. American citizens represent the majority of international adoptive parents, followed by Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

ans and those from other more developed nations. The laws of different countries vary in their willingness to allow international adoptions. Some countries, such as China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

, Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

 and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, have very well established rules and procedures for foreign adopters to follow, while others, the United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...

 (UAE) for example, expressly forbid it. International adoptions by Americans became much more common after the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

 when American servicemen fathered interracial children with Korean women. China is the leading country for international adoptions by Americans.

The U.S. Department of State has designated two accrediting entities for organizations providing inter-country adoption services in the United States that work with sending countries that have ratified the Hague Treaty. They are the Council on Accreditation and the Colorado Department of Health and Human Services. http://www.adoption.state.gov/hague/accreditation/process.html The U.S. Department of State maintains a list of all accredited international adoption providers. http://www.adoption.state.gov/hague/agency4.php?q=0&q1=&q2=0&q4=0&q5=0&dirfld=01

Facilitators

There are also individuals who act on their own and attempt to match waiting children, both domestically and abroad, with prospective parents, and in foreign countries provide additional services such as translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

 and local transport
Transport
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...

. They are commonly referred to as facilitator
Facilitator
A facilitator is someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them to plan to achieve them without taking a particular position in the discussion...

s. Since in many jurisdiction
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...

s their legal status is uncertain (and in some U.S. states they are banned outright), they operate in a legal gray area.

Where the law does not specifically allow them to, all they can do is make an introduction, leaving the details of the placement to those legally qualified to do so. But in practice, their role as gatekeepers can give them a great deal of power to direct a particular child to a particular client, or not, and some have been accused of using this power to defraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...

 prospective adoptive parents.

See also

  • Adoption tax credit
    Adoption tax credit
    An adoption tax credit is tax credit offered to adoptive parents to encourage adoption.Section 36C of the United States Internal Revenue code offers a credit for “qualified adoption expenses” paid or incurred by individual taxpayers...

  • Adoption home study
    Adoption home study
    A home study or homestudy is a screening of the home and life of prospective adoptive parents prior to allowing an adoption to take place. In some places, and in all international adoptions, a home study is required by law. Even where it is not legally mandated, it may be required by an adoption...

  • Bastard Nation
    Bastard Nation
    Bastard Nation is a North American adult adoptee political advocacy and support organization. It was founded in 1996 by denizens of the Usenet newsgroup alt.adoption Shea Grimm, Damsel Plum, Marley Greiner and Lainie Petersen...

  • Korean adoptee
    Korean adoptee
    A Korean international adoptee or KAD is a person who was adopted from South Korea through the international adoption of South Korean children as a child and raised in another country, often by adoptive parents of another race, ethnic background, and culture.-Historical context and the impact of...

  • Adoption in California
    Adoption in California
    More adoptions occur in California each year than any other state . There is domestic adoption , international adoption , step parent adoption and adult adoption More adoptions occur in California each year than any other state (followed closely by New York). There is domestic adoption (adopting a...

  • Adoption in Connecticut
    Adoption in Connecticut
    Adoption in Connecticut means "the establishment by court order of the legal relationship of parent and child." Adoption is provided for in Title 45a of the Connecticut General Statutes...

  • American family structure
    American family structure
    The American family structure is considered a traditional family support system involving two married individuals providing care and stability for their biological offspring. However, this two-parent, nuclear family has become less prevalent, and alternative family forms have become more common....


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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