Adoption in the United States
Some countries, such as China, Korea and Vietnam, have very well established rules and procedures for foreign adopters to follow, while others, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for example, expressly forbid it.
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 and local transport.
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.
As of 2021[update], fewer than one infant out of every 200 born each year are relinquished for adoption by the birth mother.
[12] In non-voluntary relinquishments, at any given point in time, approximately 100,000 children are eligible for adoption through the foster care system.
[10] Statistics from the 1940s and 1950s are unreliable, but researchers generally estimate that about 20% of the babies born to unmarried white American women were put up for adoption before the 1970s, and that this number declined steeply in the 1970s and 1980s.
[17] The U.S. government maintains a website, Child Welfare Information Gateway, which lists each state's licensed agencies.
Problems with loss, grief, rejection, guilt and shame, identity, intimacy, and control may, in some cases, uniquely affect each member of the adoption triad.
Critics of transracial adoption question whether white American parents can effectively prepare children of color to deal with racism.
[25] 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.
[26] 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.
"Since 1994, white prospective parents have filed, and largely won, more than two dozen discrimination lawsuits, according to state and federal court records.
Their collective experience can be found in films,[30][31] scholarly articles, memoirs,[32] blogs,[33] and numerous books on the subject.
[34][35] With the increase in adoption rates over the many decades, the United States has been faced with a new morally questionable practice: rehoming.
There is a lack of regulation surrounding this practice and current legislation contradicts each other, making this harder to combat.
The courts authorize this practice because the U.S. state law[36] may allow a parent, legal guardian or relative within the second degree to place out or board out a child.
The laws surrounding rehoming are basically non-existent which puts adopted children at the risk of unequipped parents and all other types of dysfunctional homes.
With the statute that allows second-degree legal guardians to put their adopted child in the care of someone else, and the rising of re-homing websites and ads on social media, the rehoming process highly exposes children to underground markets and other trafficking prospects.
In 2018, the Uniform Law Commission formed a committee to study the rehoming issue, which is also known more formerly as "unregulated transfer of adopted children".
The committee indicated that it will draft a uniform or model law to prohibit the unregulated transfer of all adopted children.
Costs vary between states due to differing regulations and fees that can cause additional expenses.
Medical costs are also frequently cited as an unexpected expense for both the birth mothers and the children.
"False starts," when a mother decides not to give up their baby after it is born, can cost up to $2,500 each time.
Foster children may also qualify for monthly government stipends, Medicaid health insurance, and even college tuition.
Jean Paton, author of Breaking Silence and founder of Orphan Voyage in 1954, is regarded as the mother of adoption reform and reunification efforts.
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 (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).
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; Dear Birthmother by Kathleen Silber and Phylis Speedlin; all published in the 1970s and still in print, were instrumental in examining and defining the foundation of reform.
[44] Each year additional states consider law changes that give persons separated by adoption access to information about themselves and each other.
Others join search and support groups, most of which are non-profit, or some hire investigative companies to locate birth families and adopted children.
