Is Adoption a Right?

[Zardnaar]

A recurring trend here is its functionally impossible to adopt. There's less than 100 adoptions per year and only around 20 or less are adopted outside the family.

Some years that 20 odd is down to very low single figures.

Maori they try and keep it in the whanau (family), hapu (clan) or iwi (tribe).

And there's being a souring on international adoptions due to various scandals (exploiting poor foreigners to outright kidnapping or exploitation).

LGBTQ people and single people are basically excluded from adoption. Not out of active discrimination but lack of supply. Couples are preferred and based on overall population number only 1 or less babies would be adopted by lgbtq couples (4-5% of the population). Single would be parents are essentially excluded for economic reasons. Very difficult for Maori as well for cultural reasons (internal adoptions).

In the 70s it was several thousand per year. Universal welfare since then and changing expectations.

I'm aware it's different overseas. Personally I don't think adoption is a right but privilege. It's a right to apply but the waiting list is large odds of successful adoption are close to zilch. Tragic for those wanting to adopt good due to lack of available adoptions?

 

[PhroX]

I think parentless children should have the right to be adopted.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think parentless children should have the right to be adopted.

Yeah that's pretty much a default assumption

 

[Quintillus]

I would agree that adoption (from the parent's standpoint) is a privilege rather than a right. There should be a certain measure of showing that the potential parent(s) are qualified and able to provide for the adoptee.

Based on my fairly poorly informed, U.S.-centric knowledge, most domestic adoptions are either due to orphanage (which seems to be rare in this day of good medical care), the child being intentionally put up for adoption by their parents (often due to not expecting to be able to care for the child), or due to previous poor parental care leading to the child becoming a ward of the state. The desired outcome is not for that child who is now a ward of the state to be adopted by someone who's going to be just as bad, so having some quality checks makes sense.

I have heard that it is difficult to adopt here, but have met some people who did so as friends-of-friends, so I know it does happen, and it sounds like it is more difficult in New Zealand.

So... a privilege, and it should be harder than adopting a cat or a dog, but are there too many hurdles? Probably in the U.S., and more probably in New Zealand.

 

[Samson]

It cannot be a right of the adoptive parents, as the optimum society would have few children who need adoption.

If there is a right involved, I would say it it is about how much control the parents should have about who the child goes to. I suspect few here would object to the Maori desire to keep the children of the community within that community, and that could be respected as a right. How far that extends is a question that gets very tricky, especially where religion and ethnicity are intertwined.

 

[Zardnaar]

It cannot be a right of the adoptive parents, as the optimum society would have few children who need adoption.

If there is a right involved, I would say it it is about how much control the parents should have about who the child goes to. I suspect few here would object to the Maori desire to keep the children of the community within that community, and that could be respected as a right. How far that extends is a question that gets very tricky, especially where religion and ethnicity are intertwined.

Idk how it works overseas but generally they favor family adoptions and espicially for Maoro (government and Maori organizatiobs).

Fostering is easier but you hear sad stories there as well.

 

[Farm Boy]

Infants are few and far between. Foster parents are in perpetual shortage. A kid in the system is probably going to age out of the system. No family net to fall back on. Just the gentle ideology and utter lack of loyalty of the state.

The Catholics used to participate in the foster system in Illinois, they would rustle up the people they could, and direct any LGBTQ people that wanted to foster to the Lutherans. Everyone who wanted to take a swing got an umbrella to work with that they could relate to, hopefully. But when politics can be had on the backs of the networkless and cloutless children, oh just too good. Our state government, in an orgasm of self righteousness, chased out the discriminatory haters from Rome, and let thier network go. Less children served, but everyone's pride, religious and otherwise, intact.

 

[Snowygerry]

It is a legal possibility with conditions attached.

If the legal procedure is completed certain rights do follow from it.

Adopting a child

You would like to adopt a child. You may want to adopt a child from your own family, your partner’s child, or a child you do not yet know.

www.vlaanderen.be

There is a long waiting list. About 20 to 30 children are placed each year.

 

[Snowygerry]

(...)
I'm aware it's different overseas. Personally I don't think adoption is a right but privilege. It's a right to apply but the waiting list is large odds of successful adoption are close to zilch. Tragic for those wanting to adopt good due to lack of available adoptions?

I suspect most would be adoptions to "simplify" family relations, so to say, like adopting a child from a partner etc.

Idk if those are counted among the 20-30 a year "placed" above, that number seems very low to me.

In such cases there would also not be a "waiting list", since nothing much changes except the legal status of those involved.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I suspect most would be adoptions to "simplify" family relations, so to say, like adopting a child from a partner etc.

Idk if those are counted among the 20-30 a year "placed" above, that number seems very low to me.

In such cases there would also not be a "waiting list", since nothing much changes except the legal status of those involved.

Yep, step child will always be a step child unless adopted.

Last time I looked into it, it took awhile to find out how to start the process of adoption, but after much googling, I found contact info to get started on the process, but it was still unclear how long the process would be or the cost. Nearest estimate I could gather was several years and $5,000.

Navigating the process yourself, there wasn't much resources, because adoption (in the US) is handled by each state, so each state is going to have different rules, costs, contact info, etc..

Most just hire a lawyer. Increased cost, for sure, but easier.

 

[Snowygerry]

Yes, it is handled regionally here too, so the 20-30 a year would just be in Flanders...

Would be interesting to see numbers from other places around the world.

 

[Samson]

Yes, it is handled regionally here too, so the 20-30 a year would just be in Flanders...

Would be interesting to see numbers from other places around the world.

I had to look. All the maps where about inter country abortions, but I found this table:

Spoiler Also :

Rates over time:

International adoption

 

[Bamspeedy]

Yes, it is handled regionally here too, so the 20-30 a year would just be in Flanders...

Would be interesting to see numbers from other places around the world.

700 a year in Wisconsin. Detailed stats:

Wisconsin

cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.gov

(foster care, adoptions, number of abuse claims. caseworker vlisits, etc., and demographics of all those)

Time to adoption: Largest group is 2-3 years. Plus or minus a year also large groups.
Edit: This is time in foster care until adoption.

 

[Tee Kay]

It's much the same story in Australia where adoptions are very rare, whether in-country adoption or adoption from overseas.

I kinda see where this came from. We don't have the best history when it comes to placing children with people other than their natural parents. So we prefer to keep children within the same family, and if outside the family care is absolutely necessary it's a temporary fostering arrangement with heavy regulations. I get it.

As someone who would very much like to adopt, it's disappointing to know that it will likely not be a realistic option through no fault of my own. But ultimately I don't have a "right" to be a parent, let alone a right to be an adoptive one.

 

[Evie]

Adoption is a privilege ; not being discriminated against by adoption groups is a right. So an adoption group has to be able to justify who gets what priority without resorting to discriminatory reasons (or thinly veiled equivalent to discriminatory reasons - "no maternal presence" is still discriminatory), but doesn't have to provide a child if there are no child to be provided.

For the Maori, I'm not familiar with specifics of New Zealand-Maori relations, but if they have faced the same kind of treatment other indigenous groups in the Commonwealth and the US have (eg, repeated forced removal of children, through residential schools then adoption, to raise them outside their culture, in many case still ongoing) then the adoption of Maori children should be a wholly separate question from other adoption, and Maori communities should be in charge of making any calls that need to be made for how these children are to be fostered or adopted, including having the right to prioritize keeping those children within their community and culture - this should not be considered discriminatory. There's similar points to be raised depending on how much of a degree of self-government the Maori have (if they're reasonably self-governing they should have their own child welfare system, that should likewise be able to prioritize keeping the child within their community).

 

[Farm Boy]

When girls specifically run away from a community and form an intentional adoption plan, legislation to claw back, years later, a family unit over the wishes of all those in and who formed the family unit because gonad squeezings and essential nature*... If that's not simple discrimination on the definition of the word, then words have no meaning. I suppose like in law.

*that's how we do it here, at any rate

 

[Samson]

not being discriminated against by adoption groups is a right.

Why? You accept the need for a separate solution in the case of the Maori and similar because of the historical trauma, and that must inherently require discrimination against those individuals who are not part of the group. On an individual level each case if a personal trauma. If that can be in some way ameliorated by a bit of discrimination is it clear while should be allowed.

I think a bigger question is why over 3% of american children get adopted, whereas in most of Europe (outside Scandinavia?) it is less than 1%.

 

[Evie]

Because past - and in far too many cases ongoing - policies that aim at or plainly contribute to the destruction of indigenous cultures are far more than mere trauma, and more on the nature of an existential threat - that is itself discriminatory in nature. The case of indigenous people is utterly unlike the kind of personnal trauma you describe.

But of course the interest of the child should still come first, and where prioritizing one parent over another can be reasonably justified by the characteristics and needs of the child without resorting to stereotypes or prejudices then that should not be seen as discrimination. But that "no stereotype or prejudice" is something that gets failed...a lot, and "children need a mommy and a daddy" is one major reason why.

 

[Samson]

Because past - and in far too many cases ongoing - policies that aim at or plainly contribute to the destruction of indigenous cultures are far more than mere trauma, and more on the nature of an existential threat - that is itself discriminatory in nature. The case of indigenous people is utterly unlike the kind of personnal trauma you describe.

But of course the interest of the child should still come first, and where prioritizing one parent over another can be reasonably justified by the characteristics and needs of the child without resorting to stereotypes or prejudices then that should not be seen as discrimination. But that "no stereotype or prejudice" is something that gets failed...a lot, and "children need a mommy and a daddy" is one major reason why.

This is all very true. It does not make it clear to me how this relates to discrimination in other circumstances. Another example, which takes up most of the report above, is international adoption as a for profit business. That discriminates strictly on wealth. Is that acceptable?

 

[Evie]

In circumstances other than the interest of the child and the preservation of existentialky threatened ethnic groups, there should not be discrimination, and agencies should be able to prove they chose per non-discriminatory criteria.

As to international for-profit adoption, discrimination on wealth is a problem but also the least of its problems; I see little enough redeeming value about it.