editors note: This post was originally located at Mrs. Broccoli Guy and moved to VVAI in Aug. 2012.
For the most part, since we started VVAI I try to keep my “soapbox type posts over there. I mean, I think the discussion of ethics belongs on every adoption blog, but rather than double post it just makes sense for me to save those topics for the blog that is specifically about ethics in adoption. But the rant I feel coming on is more personal in nature, so you get the pleasure of reading it here”¦
There is nothing that annoys me more than people who profess to be Christians who make immoral, unethical, naive, ridiculous choices and then lay all the responsibility on God. They say God “led them to do it; or God has “blessed their choice; or God “opened doors. If I walk into a room and there is a gun on the table and a person sitting on the couch, I should not then decide that God has led me to pick up the gun, that he opened the door for me to shoot the person or that he will bless me for committing murder. There is such a thing as Free Will and God has blessed us with an abundant amount of it. He has also given us minds and He expects us to use them. (“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.)
What am I talking about? I’m talking about people who choose to work with clearly unethical agencies, accept referrals for children without proper documentation (as in not even an estimated birth date), overlook obvious signs of fraud or other irregularities in their process”¦ all the while talking about how God has given them this child and what a miracle it is that their adoption is going so very quickly. And if there should be problems related to the illegal or fraudulant or unethical manner in which their adoption is being process, well then they just ask for extra prayers and shout “hallelujah when the proper officials are paid off or otherwise placated and they bring the child home. I am absolutely disgusted and embarrassed at how often I see this happening. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I beseech you: Open Your Eyes.
Adopting a child is a miracle. It is not a right, it is not a charitable act, it is not a means of rescuing a child. And it is not an excuse to break moral, ethical and civil laws. The ends do not justify the means. Yes there are children in need of families. But there are also greedy corrupt people who prey on naive, ignorant people by telling them that there are “hundreds or thousands of babies waiting for homes.
James 1:27 says this: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. If you are involved with an unethical lawyer and/or agency who is using fraudulant means to procure babies, create fraudulant paperwork and pay officials to look the other way, you are being polluted by the world. If you are not taking one second to think how that teeny tiny baby with all the adorable pictures but very little in the way of real documentation may have come to be available for adoption, you are not looking after widows in their distress.
It is not enough to pray and ask for God’s blessing. It is not enough to look for “signs. It is not enough to quote the parts of scripture that suit your needs. If your agency is making promises that seem too good to be true; if you have seen one referral after another fall through, only to be replaced by yet another young baby with abandonment paperwork; if your agency is giving you custody of a baby that has not been legally adopted by you (in an official giving and receiving ceremony); if your agency or lawyer or facilitator gives you answers that all sound like “it’s just the way its done ”¦ you can not close your eyes, plug your ears and sing praises to God. You need to do something. You need to leave the agency, report their behavior to local authorities and the embassy, you need to speak up. Yes, you may lose the referral. But then, it was never a proper referral in the first place. For all you know, that child may still have a family that loves her and wants to raise her. At the very least, you owe it to that child to speak on her behalf, to protect her from selfish and corrupt people who use babies for their own profit; to safeguard his birth history, his very identity.
**For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.**2 Timothy 1:7
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