Before I begin a discussion about what defines an “ethical” adoption, I feel it is first necessary to define some basic terms. It’s hard to decide what “ethical” looks like if everyone has their own personal concept of the word. So let’s accept these objective dictionary* definitions and go from there.
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Legal: adj. 1. of or based on law; concerned with law; falling within the province of law. 2. apppointed or required by law. 3. permitted by law; lawful. 4. recognized by law, as distinct from equity
syn: lawful, legitimate, licit, acceptable, permissible, permitted, admissible, authorized, constitutional, right, proper, correct, valid
Ethical:adj. 1. relating to morals, esp. as concerning human conduct. 2. morally correct; honorable.
syn: moral, correct, right, proper, just, righteous; honorable, decent, upright, principled, fair, honest, good, virtuous, noble.
Integrity: noun. 1. moral uprightness; honesty.
syn:uprightness, righteousness, decency, honor, principle, morality, goodness, virtue, incorruptibility; purity, honesty, veracity, truthworthiness.
Moral: adj. 1. (a) concerned with goodness or badness of human character or behavior, or with the distinction between right and wrong. (b) concerned with accepted rules and standards of human behavior. 2. (a) conforming to accepted standards of general conduct. (b) capable of moral action.
syn: ethical, right, good, pure, honest, proper, upright, honorable, decent, respectable, high-minded, virtuous, upstanding, righteous, principled, scrupulous, incorruptible, noble, just.
Corrupt: adj. & v.. 1. morally depraved; wicked. 2. influenced by or using bribery or fraudulent activity. 3. (of a text, language, etc.) harmed (esp. made suspect or unreliable) by errors or alterations.
syn: adj: dishonest, untrustworthy, dishonorable, underhand(ed) v.debase, pervert, subvert, degrade, warp; bribe, buy (off), infect, contaminate, pollute, taint, defile, spoil.
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So how do these definitions pertain to adoption? First, I would argue that at a minimum, every adoption should be Legal. And for an adoption from Vietnam by a US citizen to be legal that means it has to meet the legal standards of both countries. In the case of Vietnam, the legal standards were defined first in Decree 68 and then additionally by Decree 69/2006 and then by Circular 08/2006. In the case of the United States, the legal standards are defined by basic USCIS requirements which includes the Orphan Definition both of which are based on the Immigration and Nationality Act. And in addition to the U.S. federal laws on adopting abroad, we of course also have to comply with our state laws.
And as daunting as all of the above may seem, I believe that should only be a starting point. I believe to have a truly Ethical adoption we need to go above and beyond what is required. I believe we also need to consider what is moral, correct, right, proper, just, righteous; honorable, decent, upright, principled, fair, honest, good, virtuous, and noble. And the best way to do that is to consider who is at the center of every adoption: The child and his/her birth family. We need to ask ourselves, are we protecting them? Are we absolutely certain this adoption is in their best interests?
Any family adopting from Vietnam should start from a basic premise of meeting the Legal standard – which would begin with picking an agency legally licensed by the Government of Vietnam’s Department of International Adoptions (DIA). Unfortunately however, that does not guarantee the Ethical standard will be met throughout the adoption process nor can an adoptive family be assured of even the Legal standard being met by every one of these agencies.
So what is a prospective adopter to do? To begin with, it is possible to ascertain whether some agencies are following the legal standards, simply by reading the Vietnamese decrees. While not easy reading, they are certainly understandable and cover many basics such as appropriate timelines and procedures. If an agency is promising timelines that are far shorter than those in the decrees or describing a process that seems far different from that in the decrees, it would be reasonable to suspect that there might be some level of Corruption. Of course most agencies are smart enough to give proper sounding answers, so a simple reading of the law won’t help PAPs weed out every unethical agency.
The next question to ask is, How should an Ethical agency be working in Vietnam? Is it enough to be following all of the laws? Perhaps some level of orphanage support should be expected (and in fact, some type of humanitarian aid is in fact required by the laws, so that brings us back to the definition of Legal). Personally, I believe simply supporting the orphanages where their referrals come from is not enough. After all, isn’t that in fact self-serving because donating money will result in finding favor with the orphanage director and hopefully also result in better care for the children they are referring which would of course make the agency look good.
I would suggest that if we want to have a truly Ethical adoption, one in which the rights and interests of children and birth families are protected, agencies need to go farther. They need to invest in programs that provide for general child welfare and family preservation. Programs such as job training, single mother care and support, family reunification and counseling. Programs to support the community such as education and work projects. And every agency should participate in a program promoting domestic (Vietnamese) adoptions.
We’ve been asked to state exactly how long a referral should take. Or how old a child should be at referral. Or how long the entire process should take. And while I would like to see a world so black and white where we could say “referrals should happen no younger than 6 months of age” or some such thing, that is not possible. Certainly any PAP can read the VN decrees and add up the various required waiting periods and come to a definitive minimum age. However even that can be “flexible” depending on the way your agency does their referrals – perhaps they wait for one required time period to pass but assume the next time period can pass while the paperwork is being compiled and processed. Instead, I would suggest PAPs ask themselves, how long will it take a good agency to determine that an international adoption is in the best interests of that child? If the child was relinquished at birth, how was this decision arrived at? Did the birthmother have counseling for months prior to giving birth? Or did someone walk into the hospital minutes after the child was born and coerce a signature? If the child was abandoned, what efforts are being made to ensure that no one is looking for him/her? Will the required time period be long enough to do a comprehensive search? What if the child were trafficked from another part of the country? Are they advertising only in that one province, or throughout Vietnam? Has the agency made any effort to find a Vietnamese family to adopt the child? (While some agencies will say that the Vietnamese do not adopt domestically, I can point to at least one agency that completed 50 domestic adoptions during the shutdown, so clearly it’s not impossible.) How long would it take to answer these questions? That’s how old a child should be at referral.
I know some people see me as “anti-adoption” or “extreme” in my views. But truly, I am neither. I am adoptive sister, cousin and mother – I know that adoption can be a beautiful miraculous way to make a family. And having completed two adoptions I can honestly say that we held ourselves to these standards – the second time. The first time? I had no idea about the complicated world of international adoption ethics. Mistakes were made. Our daughter is a miracle and I believe with my whole heart she was meant to be ours. But I do regret that her birth history was lost forever because my agency (and nearly every other agency in Cambodia) decided that it was easier that way. The second time I knew more – and our family chose to settle for nothing less than absolute certainty that our child’s adoption would be Legal and Ethical. Did we wait a lot longer than most families adopting from Vietnam? Yes, we did. But it was a price we were willing to pay because our son means that much to us.
What do you think? Am I setting too high a standard? What measurement are you using with your agency, your adoption? What questions would you suggest PAP’s ask in order to choose an agency that is both Legal and Ethical?
12 Responses
Christina-
Thank you thank you thank you-
I think that defining these terms really helps put into perspective what the focus of Vietnam adoptions(or any adoption in meant to be);
The children and their first families.
It really reminds me of this verse( I know not everyon whe contributes/reads this site is Christian, if Bible verses offen you please don’t read it):
1Co 10:23 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify.
Ah, the meaty posts coming out of VVAI lately is absolutely astounding. This issue is one of the harder ones because of how we would each define “ethical” in terms of our adoptions, but it’s a subject that I know that I have been waiting for.
I think now I see the confusion and what the fighting is all about. I think a lot of PAPs that have been arguing (and you can correct me if I am wrong) have been arguing for a legal adoption, as opposed to ethical (not necessarily against ethical, but seemingly shooting for legal) – but since the term ethical was never defined, well, there can certainly be confusion.
So, if this is the case, and we go by your definitions above, then there are technically agencies that do not have legal adoptions (and I suppose the best example of that would be if they have received a NOID?), agencies that have legal adoptions, and agencies that are ethical. Am I figuring this out correctly?
Best case scenario will always be an ethical adoption. This can not be argued. But I will ask you this: is it ethical for a PAP to shoot for a legal adoption as opposed to an ethical adoption?
That’s an interesting question, Melinda. Our own personal definitions of ethical, and the dictionary definition referenced in this post, very well may turn out to be “stricter” than the baseline *legal* adoption offered by agencies.
But if we agree to just let our own moral compasses be our guide, that still allows for PAPs to be ignorant and turn a blind eye to corruption, does it not? If they justify their adoption and agencies by just being *legal* that still may leave a lot to be desired, no?
Not necessarily, Sarah. Based on this, and it’s helping me make sense of some things, I now believe there are three types of PAPs and agencies (yes, I know it’s not as black and white as this, but it is the least amount of grey I have been able to make it). There are PAPs who are willing to turn a blind eye to corruption and illegal activities (they do exist!). There are PAPs who want a legal adoption. And there are PAPs who want an ethical adoption. I’m just starting to figure this out, but I believe they are separate and I’m trying to start to gain an understanding of this really grey area that has been floating around.
There are agencies where they are involved in illegal activities – just watching the lists and blogs and news of NOIDs, you can find them. There are agencies that are on most “good” lists – as in, they are a good, honest, ethical agency to go with. There are around 5 of them from what I can tell. These are usually the agencies that go above and beyond and are ethical – I believe Holt is the one I hear about most often. Then there’s that big grey area, where these agencies are not participating in illegal activities (as far as I or anyone can tell from what I have researched and read about), but they aren’t necessarily ethical because they don’t go above and beyond as much as agencies such as Holt. What catagory are they in? Legal. Not horrible, as in, you should run screaming from them. Not off-the-charts fantastic. Legal – big, grey area.
I think what I’m saying is – while legal shouldn’t be what we shoot for when adopting (we should and agencies should be shooting for ethical), I don’t necessarily believe it’s the villian. That award goes to the agencies contributing to corruption and illegal things, like baby trafficking. We classify things so strongly in the bad vs good area – I think that the grey, legal area gets left out of the discussion quite a bit.
Good post. I wanted to bring something up that I haven’t seen discussed on VVAI (though I might have missed it) but I think is very much related to all this talk of morals and ethics and their applications to VN adoptions. When we define morals we tend to assume good and bad are universal. Coercing a birthmom / firstmom to give up her baby (which is illegal) is morally wrong to me but I know of at least 1 facilitator that feels taking a child from a poor family and placing that child with a “wealthy” (please don’t fiight me on this label for American adoptive families) family is ALWAYS the right thing to do for the child. When we were in VN with Jack, we were asked all the time “how much for baby” and always told how lucky he was to be adopted by Americans. I can’t speak for Vietnamese but I can say we got that impression from a lot of people we met, especially in the South. With that underlying sentiment, I’m not sure if it is possible to assure an ethical / moral / legal adoption when there are so many layers of people involved and so little transparency in the process. Facilitators are one thing. What about baby finders, orphanage directors, village and family leaders? We were also told that some Vietnamese would rather lie to clients rather than dissapoint them. That said, I’m sure I’m going to get attacked (mostly because that seems to be what VVAI is all about these days) by some fervent commentors about how their agency would never lie to them and they know each step in the process was moral / ethical / legal even though they have no evidence for that. They will take that to their grave and even fight to get a NOID overturned because they believe what their agency tells them about their practices. I’m not always one to blindly trust the government (I wasted $100,000s as a contractor / consultant for the government) but I do believe Mary Ann Russell at CIS has the right intentions. I spoke with her at length when in VN and also corresponded with her when choosing our second agency and I believe she is legitimately trying to help families. I’m not sure what the motivation is for CIS / State Dept to single out agences (PLAN, OO, FHSA, ADOPPT, World Child, more to come with the new i-600 process) for investigations and NOIDs other than a real concern about their specific practices. Personally, I would take this as a reflection of the agencies and not as a crusade against PAPs. I guess my point in all this rambling is that there are some aspects of morality that get muddled because this is a cross cultural adoption and morals, right and wrong, are not universal. I am not advocating for people to choose agencies lightly because they are all bad. My point is only to reiterate how convoluted the topic of morality is when applied cross culturally.
I think Travis brings up a really good point, and one that has concerned me since our very first “agency information meeting”-you know the ones where a local adoption agency has a meet & greet and you ask question to figure if adoption and that particular agency is for you…
During the Q&A time, my DH and I were asking about the Guatemala program and how they ensured that the 1st-moms were indeed the ones who signed off on the paperwork. The SW who led the meeting told us of a complicated DNA testing process, but then proceed to say, “Even if it is the wrong paperwork, those babies would be brought up in poverty anyway, so it is so much better that they are brought to the US.”
We sat there with our mouths hanging open.
We looked around. Everyone else at the meeting was nodding their head in agreement. We walked out.
This is an assumption by the countries we adopt from, and by many of us, that children are better off brought up in wealthy societies. While I can understand this perspective coming from the countries that have actually had to live in poverty and know the pain of starvation, on the part of us wealthy Americans, it is simply arrogance.
The truth is that the very best thing is for these children to be raised by their first families and for their families to have the resources to raise them.
That is why I believe that the only moral/ethical thing to use an agency that is not only offering adoption services, as a last best option for children, but also working within the country to change the systems that keep people in poverty, to change the legacy of poverty on individual families. It is not enough to adopt a child. Adoption does not solve the problem of wealth imbalance in the world, in fact in many places, it adds to it.
What would happen if ALL adoptive families would only use agencies that also have child sponsorship programs, promoted domestic adoption, have ongoing programs that teach people how to be gainfully employed in their countries, how to run small business and give them micro-loans to do it.
I believe when we take a child from their birth country, we have an obligation to that country.
I know this is a radical concept of adoption being the last best option, but I believe that if we are not doing all we can to make adoption “safe, legal and rare”, then we are being purely selfish on this road of adoption. While that may be our prerogative, it is neither moral nor ethical.
I have tried to write on this section several times and it’s been hard, not because I don’t agree with most of what is said (contrary to popular belief, I am not the supporter of unethical agencies), but I also don’t know if I should just keep my opinions to myself because believe it or not I do believe in helping the children of Vietnam and I think the agencies are the ones that have the best chance of making real changes not only for the children but for their communities. But I also don’t want to be the one that ruins this board because I do think it’s important. So I have a thick skin and anyone who wants to e-mail me privately (or say it publically if you want) to stop posting I will seriously take it under consideration….I have a big mouth and a lot of opinions and I’m not afraid to voice them….lol.
I personally would love to see the agencies do so much more for the community in addition to the orphanages themselves. I think supporting the orphanages to ensure the children are well cared for (all of the children, not just those assigned to that particular agency) should be a given. I don’t know how effective things like counseling would be since it’s not really solving the fundamental issue which is causing parents to have to give up their children-extreme poverty. It breaks my heart that any parent feels they have to give their child up for adoption to give it a better life (but that happens everywhere…even here in America) but what bothers me even more is the fact there are most likely people (I don’t know who…agencies/facilitators, baby finders, etc) who are exploiting these peoples extreme poverty and poor living conditions in order to gain custody of these children. It doesn’t matter if the parents are willingly giving up the children if they are doing it because someone is praying on their vulnerable state in order to procure babies for us.
Christina made a statement about ensuring the best interests of the children are taken into account before an adoption goes forth. I think the sad thing about this system is even if these children are being bought (which I don’t agree with) or a family is pressured into giving that child up, I am pretty sure all documentation regarding parentage is either destroyed, or more likely never existed in the first place. So what does this mean for the children? I believe the children should be with birthparents first if that’s a viable option (no matter how poor they are or if we can give the child a better life, we are not entitled to anyone else’s child, not in our country or anyone else’s) or if they could live their entire lives in a good foster home that would be a better option for the children who come to the system illegally or immorally. But what about those that will have to stay in the orphanages? Is it fair that they will have to live their entire lives without a family at all because of all of this? That’s what I worry about, I worry about the children that are already in the orphanages and have no hope of a family because of this. I personally think every child deserves a family and I hate to think of any of them growing up without one (no matter how good the orphanages are, they are still institutions). Does this mean I think the children should be adopted even if the information can’t be verified, honestly I don’t know. Maybe if everyone knew from the get go and there were no more lies so at least families could give the children as much information as possible about their start in life. Which would the child want ultimately; to grow up in a loving home in America knowing they may have been taken from their birth family but there was no way to reunite them, or for them to grow up in an orphanage their entire lives knowing that at least they still have their country and their culture even if they don’t have the family? Tough questions.
So this is why I would like to see the agencies pour their money into the communities so that parents don’t have to make this difficult decision and they are less vulnerable to unscrupulous people trying to satisfy their American (and other countries too, I know we aren’t the only ones adopting from Vietnam) clients need for babies.
Oh yea, I also wanted to say thanks for the definitions…I realize I have been thinking in legal terms and not ethical or moral ones….too bad we couldn’t just use legal, that would be so much more cut and dried. But I personally don’t think legal is enough, we are all paying huge fees to the agencies thinking that humanitarian work is being done…they should be doing it if for no other reason than that (but of course I hope they have a commitment to the country and WANT to do more). I think where we may all differ is in exactly where that money should be going to.
Tracy
Tracy-
Thank you for writing that comment, it does bring up hard questions and ones that I have thought about also.
Melinda,
Thanks for that clear explanation! I, too, want moral and ethical, not just legal. But, of course, it’s the unethical agencies that are the real problem.
I’m not sure what kind of evidence will satisfy people that an agency is unethical, because even faciliators whose agencies have been closed down are still defended because they weren’t prosecuted. I don’t think we’re going to see actual prosecution of agencies. Short of that, I still think: Why choose an agency with some questions about its ethics swirling around when there are so many others out there to choose from? The only answer I’ve ever gotten from anyone (and it was true of my too, initially, but not now) was the promise of a quicker referral.
Heidi
Christina,
I just read two VN adoption blogs about identical twin boys who were separated for the adoptions. It shocked and horrified me. What are your thoughts on that — is it ethical?? Should the question of splitting up sibling groups be addressed in terms of ethics too?
ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!(be brought up, I mean)
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