Someone in one of my (many) Facebook groups asked the question of whether there is ever a just reason to adopt. Honestly, I don’t know anymore. There is nothing pure in this world, so a purely just reason to have a child in any way, much less through adoption, is hard to quantify.
Some in the anti-adoption movement view adoption as the “unnecessary tearing apart of families to meet a demand for their children.” One group maintains that “obtaining kids by ANY means (outside of traditional pregnancy) – adoption, surrogacy, purchased anonymous eggs and sperm are all considered ‘choices’ or even rights with no regard for rights of the children being produced or purchased.”
The movement is dominated by adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents who have had profoundly negative experiences with adoption. For many in these groups the only valid family is one linked by DNA. Incidents like the series of failures that led to the murder of the six Hart children amplify the rhetoric and underline the fissures in the system.
The fact is that adoption comes from things somewhere, somehow, going very, very wrong. Adoption starts with trauma.
People don’t get pregnant with the intent of placing their children just as adoption is rarely the first choice for those seeking to expand their families. Anyone, particularly any woman, contemplating adoption is in a vulnerable position. The fact is that if the U.S. had a stronger social safety net our Lil Bit would not be with us.
Her other mom placed her in an act of love and desperation. In any other developed country in the world it is unlikely she ever would have been put in that position. This is why when well-meaning people say that this is God’s will I cringe. I don’t believe in a God that would force this woman to endure unimaginable suffering just so that I may expand my family.
You cannot separate domestic adoption, especially transracial adoption, in the U.S. from the reality of life in the U.S. The rampant inequity, the systemic racism, the hypocrisy of too many who claim to be Christian. Vulnerable people should have more protections in place. The system needs to be changed. That takes time and is not going to help those trapped in it right now. Given the realities we all live with now, I cannot assume people in the position are incapable of making valid and logical decisions. Is it a just decision? Gods, I cannot judge that.
I am not an adoptee. My family is huge, sprawling, complex, bound by blood and by law and by love, but not always all at once. My husband is an adoptee. His family is huge, sprawling, complex, bound by blood and by law and by love, but not always all at once. Our child is an adoptee. She has a family that is huge, sprawling, complex, bound by blood and by law and by love, but not always all at once. That’s all the justice I can offer.