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The Politics of Adoption

The Politics of Adoption. Transformations Week 19. Structure of lecture. Legal and policy context Who’s fit to parent? Transracial adoption Inter-country adoption. Media interest.

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The Politics of Adoption

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  1. The Politics of Adoption Transformations Week 19

  2. Structure of lecture • Legal and policy context • Who’s fit to parent? • Transracial adoption • Inter-country adoption

  3. Media interest • In late 1990s, Labour MP Clare Short admitted that she had been reunited with a son whom she had given up for adoption 31 years previously when she was a young student • Contemporary films, television documentaries and literature also evidenced an interest in the issue – e.g. Mike Leigh’s (1997) award-winning film Secrets and Lies • In the early months of 2001, the ‘story’ of the Kilshaws and a so called ‘Internet adoption’ dominated the media (see ‘Controversy Rages over the Twins Sold to Highest Bidder’, Guardian, 17 January 2001).

  4. Legal and policy context • Adoption is the legal process by which a child becomes a permanent member of a new family. The birth (biological) parents' rights and legal responsibilities are transferred to the adoptive (social) parents. • In the UK, adoptions are arranged by adoption agencies or local authorities, and are made legally binding by the courts. • The birth parents no longer have any legal rights over the child and they cannot reclaim children they have given up for adoption. • This practice of adoption - as an irrevocable severing of a child's relationship with her biological family - is largely a European and American practice. • In many third world countries (and here until recently), informal adoption and kinship care have always existed - western formalised adoption by non-relatives is very new.

  5. Adoption in the UK: A brief history • Adoption made legal in the UK in 1926 after first world war and the 1918 influenza epidemic – many children orphaned and many women left unable to raise their children alone. • For the next 50 years adoption practice was primarily about finding babies for childless couples. • The ‘perfect’ baby was newborn, white, and developmentally normal. • Always more applicants than babies so the definition of ‘the perfect adopter’ could be restricted by age, marital and professional status, and wealth. • By 1970 dramatic drop in the number of babies available for adoption. • Adoption became a solution to the care problems of children whose parents were unwilling, unable, or unfit to care for them.

  6. Current dilemmas in adoption practice • identifying circumstances that justify permanently removing children from their birth parents • finding permanent families for very traumatised children • resolving policy dilemmas around transracial placements • ensuring that intercountry adoption is carried out in the best interests of the child. • modern adoption practice emphasises openness and exchange of information between birth and adoptive families.

  7. Some statistics • 59,500 children looked after at 31 March 2008, 1% fewer than in 2007 (60,000) and a decrease of 3% compared to 2004 (61,200). • 3,200 of these children were adopted during the year ending 31 March 2008 - a 5% decrease from the previous year's figure of 3,300 and a 16% decrease from the 2003-04 figure of 3,800. • 60,000 children were in the care of local authorities on 31st March 2007 http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000810/index.shtml

  8. Adoption and care • relatively few children adopted from care in the UK • very few ‘ideal babies’ awaiting adoption • increase in numbers of newborn babies under a month old being taken into care • ‘Today’s social workers ....are rushing cases through to meet new government imposed targets for improving adoption rates just as social workers decades ago hurried to fulfil the dreams of childless couples waiting in the wings’.

  9. The case of Baby G • In January 2008, an 18 year old woman gave birth to a son (baby G) in a Nottingham hospital. • social workers ‘snatched’ Baby G from his mother and placed him in foster care. • The child was removed without mother's permission because ‘birth plan’ said she should be separated from the child • The woman won back her son, after obtaining an emergency high court order that ruled social workers had broken the law when they removed the baby two hours after his birth. • Social services succeeded in their second attempt to obtain an interim care order and remove the four-day-old boy from his mother. The baby was placed in foster care.

  10. Who’s fit to parent? • Mukhti Campion (1995) argues that adoptive parents must show themselves to adoption agencies and social workers as extraordinary parents. • The application of these selection criteria means that: • adopted children generally gain an improvement in their social status, because adoptive parents generally tend to be from among the middle classes • adoptive parents are generally more highly motivated to be parents and consequently invest more to ensure their success as parents

  11. Current guidelines for adoption • Since 2005 legislation in England defines any family structure as appropriate for a child's upbringing • Single people, older couples with their own children, gay men and women, people who have remarried, childless couples, people with disabilities can all adopt • Gender differences - a single woman may adopt children of either sex and of all ages • - a single man can only adopt a male child, and generally single men are excluded from adoption of very young children, babies or toddlers

  12. Adoption by gay partners • Some resistance to adoption by gay couples • Religious opposition • 2007 Equality Act • 11 agencies given 21 month exemption period • Half the Catholic adoption agencies adopted the guidelines • Still controversial

  13. Transracial adoption • Transracial or transcultural adoption means placing a child who is of one race or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another race or ethnic group • See http://www.npr.org/blogs/bryantpark/2007/11/white_kid_black_family_transra.html for discussion on white child adopted by Black African-American family. Listen to this interview with the adoptive African-American father http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16611567 • Transracial adoption a political minefield in the UK and the USA.

  14. ‘love doesn’t see colour’ • In 1950s and 1960s black children were considered 'unadoptable'. • In 1965 a recruitment drive to find parents willing to adopt transracially - mainly middle-class, educated, already parents, living in predominantly white areas • By the 1970s there were three factors backing transracial adoption: • it was seen as successful, • there was a shortage of black adopters • the thinking was that 'permanency' was best

  15. Political and ethical questions • disturbing tales of black children in white adoptive families trying to bleach or scrub themselves white, feeling ashamed of their blackness • falling victim to racial abuse both inside and outside the adoptive home • longing to know more about their cultural heritage • 1972 the National Association of Black Social Workers came out favouring same-race adoption, calling the adoption of black children by white parents a ‘particular form of genocide’

  16. The Adoption and Children Act 2002 • Rethinking transracial adoption • Criticisms based on realities of discrimination • Anticipated experiences of a black child in a white family • Arguments for transracial adoption • Importance of finding a loving home • Race separatism • Listen to a BBC Radio debate about adoption and black families • http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2007/09/14/blacklondon_feature.shtml

  17. Intercountry adoption • Adoption of a child by adoptive parents who are residents of another country • Began in North America as philanthropic response to devastation following World War II, initially involved children moving from orphanages in Europe to North America • As a more global phenomenon, it has grown rapidly since 1990 when the world first discovered Romanian orphans • Global movement annually of about 30,000 children per year moving between 100 different countries

  18. The ‘Hague Convention’ • Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, The Hague, 29 May 1993 • Provides a framework for the process of intercountry adoptions • Aims to protect the best interests of the child • Establishes a system of co-operation between contracting countries to prevent the abduction, sale, or trafficking of children • Incorporated in UK adoption law under the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999 superseded by Adoption and Children Act 2002

  19. The Kilshaw case • 2001 internet adoption of mixed race twin girls from America by the Kilshaws • http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/1764568.stmhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2001/apr/09/adoptionandfostering.intercountryadoption • paid £8200 in fees, 'quickie' adoption in Arkansas • the babies had already been 'bought' for £4000 by California couple • biological mother wanted them back • a third couple came forward to say that they too had been offered the twins for £5800 • In April that year, the twins - who had known four sets of parents in their nine months of life - were handed to foster parents in their native state of Missouri.

  20. Child trafficking • Poverty and war are biggest reasons for children being put up for intercountry adoption • Times of war and social upheaval are precisely when children should not be adopted • UNICEF’s guidelines: ‘In natural emergencies or even armed conflicts there is a very clear guideline that no intercountry adoptions must be allowed for at least two years if a child's family, its wider family, has not been traced.’ • Zoe’s Ark

  21. Conclusions and issues raised • the rights of parents versus the rights of the state • social constructions of ‘childhood’ and ‘children’ at particular moments in history • how we arrive at notions such as ‘good enough parenting’ • how societies are economically structured to enable some parents to cope with the financial costs of children and not others • sexual orientation and parenting • the commodification of children and new markets in child welfare • neocolonial practices and how the richer West relates to the ‘Third World’ and to parts of the former Eastern bloc • ‘Race’, class, biological and social parenting

  22. Further reading • David M. Smolin, "Child Laundering: How the Intercountry Adoption System Legitimizes and Incentivizes the Practices of Buying, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Stealing Children" (August 29, 2005). bepress Legal Series. Working Paper 749. http://law.bepress.com/expresso/eps/749

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