Recently I’ve started thinking about the issue of older children, special needs children and other hard to place orphans and how these adoptions mesh with adoption integrity.
Often times I will hear about a child who has become available through a less-than-reputable agency and it pulls at my heartstrings. And it brings up some issues for me. Is it OK to pursue an adoption of a hard to place child even if it’s through a questionable agency? What will happen to this child if no one claims him or her? Is it more likely that the adoption is ethical if it is a hard to place child? Is it OK to financially help support an agency who has an ethically unsound practice when the payoff is bringing a child into your home that may never find another family? What if the child has a full history and paperwork? What if the child’s birth family is willing to keep in touch?
These are tough questions. Because my own adoption looked nothing like this, I turned to those who have been through the process with older or waiting children and drew from their experiences. I admit I was expecting hoping for one answer and was surprised and enlightened to hear the opposite.
By and large, those who have been around the block a time or two have said that they would not, in fact, pursue an adoption regardless of the situation or child, if an agency had questionable integrity.
My inner voice screamed out for The Child! What about The Child?! It isn’t that child’s fault that they were referred to a questionable agency. They may not ever have their referral passed to a more ethical agency! This seems so unfair.
And that’s the whole rub with ethics and adoption. Even if you know enough to understand the potential problems, the heart argues with the mind. It’s easy to just let the heart lead. The Child!!!
But at the end of the day, The Child is the very reason to walk away from an unethical agency. Not just one child but all the children. Parents learned through much pain 5 years ago that the entire adoption program can be halted in Vietnam at any time. By the US or by Vietnam, itself. Supporting unethical agencies by signing contracts with them and paying their salaries feeds the almost inevitability that this will happen again. Next time the program may not close down for just 4 years, it may close down for good.
It is terrible that a child might have come into an orphanage through legitimate needs and may have great need for a family but will have been offered as a referral to an unethical agency. But we can’t know that any given situation is truly legitimate. As soon as we start down a path with an agency that practices in some areas without integrity, it takes credibility away from every other way they do business. Is the child truly in need? Or was a large bribe offered to a needy family when a parent came to an agency expressing a desire to adopt a special needs or older child? Was this truly the parent’s idea or were they approached by unscrupulous facilitators? Even a birth family who is willing to remain in contact may be a victim of coercion. What a horrible thing to find out later that your child was traded for a new home, a monthly stipend, or less. We just can’t know. And even if the child is, without a doubt, a legitimate orphan there can be many other questionable activities that occur during the adoption process by unscrupulous agencies. Bribery, government coercion, expedited adoptions are all red flags along the way that the USCIS may look at to determine whether an adoption is legitimate before granting that sought-after USA entry visa. It is just not worth the risk. Not the personal risk, not the risk to the child that you are removing them from a birth family who wanted them, not the risk to the entire adoption program and the thousands of legitimate orphans who would go homeless if the program were to shut down.
So how do you feel about this issue? Do you peek at the waiting child photolistings? What do you think you’d do if you fell in love with a child who happened to be matched with an agency you would never consider signing with otherwise? Is there every a situation where it’s OK to use a questionable agency?
2 Responses
Would I adopt a “hard to place” child uising a questionable agency? No.
When I think of unethical practices two main scenarios come to mind (although I know there are many more)…
1. Bribes – to make paperwork move faster or to get people to turn a blind eye to unethical practices
2. Child-trafficking and/or coercion to supply the demand
Scenario # 1…paperwork processing for older or special needs children are no different than a healthy infant girl. If an agency is relying on bribes to move paperwork, this is probably happening regardless of the age and health of the child.
Scenario # 2…there are PAPs who want to adopt only older children and special needs children. Just because we see most parents requesting young, healthy babies does not mean there is not a demand for older children, too.
Long story short, adopting an older or special needs child does not guarantee an ethical adoption.
It would be incredibly difficult to say no to a child simply because they are being placed via a questionable agency. I am such a bleeding heart, especially when it comes to children. This is definitely a subject that can pit morals against ethics. From a moral standpoint do I want to give this child a home and family and love? Yes. Ethically should I? Probably not. But taking a step back and looking at the big picture, my morals side with keeping this whole process on the up and up and helping all the kids who would be left behind if the program shut down. So, no in my opinion there is never going to be a situation where using an unethical agency is OK.
[…] is bigger than the babies themselves. And then re-read my blog entry from the other day about Waiting Children & Unethical Agencies. If it looks too good to be true, it probably […]