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Do you think ~25 million couples are going to sit home and ignore the fact they cannot have children? That a pretty basic biological need. I would also note that these couples have a great deal of time on their hands since they don't have children to raise. All the ones I've met are very motivated to use the political process to change laws to help them achieve their goal. Politicians pay attention to a 25 million voter block.
I would also point out that nowhere did I state that these couples would treat children as a commodity or do anything UN-ethical. Being infertile does not make you un-ethical. Neither does trying to a family via alternate family building methods.
A few facts:
Plenty of people feel blessed to be childless.
Shopping for humans is treating them like a commodity. It's unethical. It's wrong.
People too self-absorbed about their childlessness to mentor and help real live children and instead decide to sit at home, night after night, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, should not raise children.
A human being given to strangers to satisfy their biological need borders on trafficking. And if one is
Christian, using the biological need card, is just an excuse to get around: Thou Shalt Not Covet. When really, all they have to do is provide a manger or mentor another baby or family.
Shopping for humans is treating them like a commodity. It's unethical. It's wrong.
People too self-absorbed about their childlessness to mentor and help real live children and instead decide to sit at home, night after night, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, should not raise children.
A human being given to strangers to satisfy their biological need borders on trafficking. And if one is
Christian, using the biological need card, is just an excuse to get around: Thou Shalt Not Covet. When really, all they have to do is provide a manger or mentor another baby or family.
Thanks for your comments.
I don't think your comments will comfort couples that are infertile. I also don't think couples that are infertile automatically become "child traffickers." Most that I personally have known have gone though numerous legal bureaucracies to ensure that the birth families rights have been carefully preserved even though the adoptive families have no rights until an adoption is finalized. I also think that Christians' have biological urges to reproduce and that urge has nothing to do with coveting. I also wonder how many children do you have? Are you practicing what you preach? Are you childless and find comfort mentoring another baby from afar? And what about the grandparents of all these childless couples? That is the whole point of this article. This agency has destroyed so many families and that included multiple generations.
This is the year, 2017 - the pendulum is going back to the original definition of adoption: finding homes for people who need them.
Your perspective for adoption parrots propaganda from adoption agencies which started the whole silliness of preying on vulnerable people, either pregnant or barren.
Since the closing of that agency, energy needs to help adult adoptees get their documentation for free, instead having to pay for it. Their civil rights are front and center.
This is the year, 2017 - the pendulum is going back to the original definition of adoption: finding homes for people who need them.
Your perspective for adoption parrots propaganda from adoption agencies which started the whole silliness of preying on vulnerable people, either pregnant or barren.
Since the closing of that agency, energy needs to help adult adoptees get their documentation for free, instead having to pay for it. Their civil rights are front and center.
IAC has hurt a great deal of people. I have little faith that the US Bankruptcy Court can provide any relief to any of the parties trying to get any justice from IAC. That includes childless couples, adoptees, or parents of childless couples hoping to be grandparents one day. Your demonizing of childless couples in pursuit of a family seems to me to be an attempt to strip civil rights from couples trying to adopt. Please try to remember that everyone has civil rights, not just the group you are lobbying for.
Shopping for humans is treating them like a commodity. It's unethical. It's wrong.
People too self-absorbed about their childlessness to mentor and help real live children and instead decide to sit at home, night after night, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, should not raise children.
A human being given to strangers to satisfy their biological need borders on trafficking. And if one is
Christian, using the biological need card, is just an excuse to get around: Thou Shalt Not Covet. When really, all they have to do is provide a manger or mentor another baby or family.
While it would be ideal if all biological parents were also loving, wise, and caring to their offspring, sadly this is not the reality, or foster care here in the US and orphanages elsewhere around the world would not exist.
I hope you will look into what happens to children living in the thousands of orphanages and institutions in the developing world. Those without special needs are still at enormous risk once they "graduate" at age sixteen or so...risk of falling prey to prostitution, criminal behavior, drugs, alcoholism - and having babies of their own far too early.
Check out videos of the orphanage graduation ceremonies in Ukraine, for example - they'll break your heart, as the directors try to make festive occasions for the graduates, who are typically wearing their pitiful best while tears roll down their cheeks. A few babushkas or aunties may be in the audience - but almost never a parent. 16 year olds age out from adoption by American citizens, unless they're part of a sibling group with younger children. Far too often, such teens are doomed. Many die before their twentieth birthdays...often at their own hand. Fortunately, there are a few non-profits who assist such teens, but far too few, and government help is limited. Stipends of less than $50 a month don't go far.
Orphaned children with special needs are at even higher risk. Often such children are given up to the state at birth or whenever their special need is spotted. Orphanages and institutions for individuals with special needs are typically grim, isolated places in which only the bare basics are provided. Death rates are extremely high in such places, and children often resemble concentration camp victims. There is no education, no therapy, little stimulation, and little supervision.
I know of a little girl, now in her early teens, who weighed fourteen pounds at age nine, when she was adopted out of such a hell-hole, this one in Eastern Europe. Her special need? Down syndrome, minus any other complications. She had been starved and was near death when she came to this country.
Now she is thriving, but has institutional autism, understandably, considering the abuse and neglect she (barely) survived. She grew to the size of a typical seven year old, though she's around 14 now. Thankfully, her case and her adoption by an American family led to press coverage of the place - Pleven, look it up - where she and so many other children like her suffered for so many years, while the director pocketed the money that was supposed to pay for their care. The press coverage led to government intervention, though the place is still corrupt - just not quite as murderously as before.
I know other children, some with high intelligence, who were given up by their birth parents at birth and sent to adult level mental institutions at the age of six or seven solely because of physical disabilities. They were adopted by Americans, have received and continue to receive treatment for their special needs, are being educated, and have bright futures rather than spending the rest of the lives behind locked doors and high walls.
I have personally met four kids with arthrogryposis, a condition that seems to be more common since Chernobyl, who fit this description. One of these children is a gifted artist, another is musical, and yet a third is highly articulate and enjoys creative writing. Their adoptive families are nurturing these gifts - and the children themselves are the best gifts of all.
So please, while you're advocating for family reunification and speaking out against adoption - educate yourself. Sometimes adoption is the best option. Sometimes it is the only option, for children like I just described.
Deviating from the original intent of adoption is causing people to be victimized as we continually see with this agency and others.
Throughout the heartache and monetary loss, it is actually positive when private infant adoptions are declining because then babies and children are remaining with their families. This, perhaps you can appreciate since you have concern for parents and grandparents.
Relative to the civil rights of tax paying citizens –
When citizens can readily obtain their birth certificates yet others are systematically denied their birth certificates and original documents, then this is a civil rights issue.
If citizens are being denied systematically by the government, social organizations or private individuals from being able to parent, then they’d have a civil rights issue, too.
Finally, when one calls one out another about the purpose of adoption, it does not mean they are anti-adoption nor are they demonizing a group of people due to their medical condition.
While it would be ideal if all biological parents were also loving, wise, and caring to their offspring, sadly this is not the reality, or foster care here in the US and orphanages elsewhere around the world would not exist.
I hope you will look into what happens to children living in the thousands of orphanages and institutions in the developing world. Those without special needs are still at enormous risk once they "graduate" at age sixteen or so...risk of falling prey to prostitution, criminal behavior, drugs, alcoholism - and having babies of their own far too early.
Check out videos of the orphanage graduation ceremonies in Ukraine, for example - they'll break your heart, as the directors try to make festive occasions for the graduates, who are typically wearing their pitiful best while tears roll down their cheeks. A few babushkas or aunties may be in the audience - but almost never a parent. 16 year olds age out from adoption by American citizens, unless they're part of a sibling group with younger children. Far too often, such teens are doomed. Many die before their twentieth birthdays...often at their own hand. Fortunately, there are a few non-profits who assist such teens, but far too few, and government help is limited. Stipends of less than $50 a month don't go far.
Orphaned children with special needs are at even higher risk. Often such children are given up to the state at birth or whenever their special need is spotted. Orphanages and institutions for individuals with special needs are typically grim, isolated places in which only the bare basics are provided. Death rates are extremely high in such places, and children often resemble concentration camp victims. There is no education, no therapy, little stimulation, and little supervision.
I know of a little girl, now in her early teens, who weighed fourteen pounds at age nine, when she was adopted out of such a hell-hole, this one in Eastern Europe. Her special need? Down syndrome, minus any other complications. She had been starved and was near death when she came to this country.
Now she is thriving, but has institutional autism, understandably, considering the abuse and neglect she (barely) survived. She grew to the size of a typical seven year old, though she's around 14 now. Thankfully, her case and her adoption by an American family led to press coverage of the place - Pleven, look it up - where she and so many other children like her suffered for so many years, while the director pocketed the money that was supposed to pay for their care. The press coverage led to government intervention, though the place is still corrupt - just not quite as murderously as before.
I know other children, some with high intelligence, who were given up by their birth parents at birth and sent to adult level mental institutions at the age of six or seven solely because of physical disabilities. They were adopted by Americans, have received and continue to receive treatment for their special needs, are being educated, and have bright futures rather than spending the rest of the lives behind locked doors and high walls.
I have personally met four kids with arthrogryposis, a condition that seems to be more common since Chernobyl, who fit this description. One of these children is a gifted artist, another is musical, and yet a third is highly articulate and enjoys creative writing. Their adoptive families are nurturing these gifts - and the children themselves are the best gifts of all.
So please, while you're advocating for family reunification and speaking out against adoption - educate yourself. Sometimes adoption is the best option. Sometimes it is the only option, for children like I just described.
Adoption is about finding homes for children who need them - this what I advocate for.
xy340 may not realise that portraying people that are infertile as being entitled or victimized is insulting to them, and of course, it has nothing to do with finding a home for a child.
xy340 may not realise that portraying people that are infertile as being entitled or victimized is insulting to them, and of course, it has nothing to do with finding a home for a child.
It does seem to be in vogue currently to portray infertile couples as the villains in adoption arena/family reunification. Many, like you, seem to think infertile couples destroy biological families, rip infants from biological mother's arms, etc. That has not been my experience.
My experience is couples who want to start families are prevented from doing so due to medical problems. When this happens they attempt to adopt. These couples jump through increasing difficult legal procedures and more time than not fail to find a child to adopt. At the same time we see biological families abandon their children in increasing numbers, see children die in foster care by the hundreds and see children killed by their biological relatives. I'm definitely not going to say that adoption is a perfect system, but portraying infertile couples as entitled or a villain or the cause of breaking up biological families is less than accurate. I would also note that I do NOT have a horse in this fight as I have six biological children. I would also note that no one has ever accused me of being infertile.
I would note that there are many instances where a child needs another set of parents than the biological parents they were born to. Many biological parents just do NOT have the skill sets to parent a child. You may not want to run off all these villainous childless couples, your probably going to need them one day.
The other issue/problem society has with these childless couples is that get angry with society and do things like bring lawsuits against the tax commissioner for increasing their school taxes since they never can send children to public schools. Or demand their school tax money be earmarked to senior housing since they don't have children and it make no sense for their tax dollars to be used to support public schools. Think about all the public schools they will be closing down and the problems they are causing with local, state, and federal agencies budgets. Society might want to think about including them in our "child-based society" otherwise they will tear it apart.
I wonder if society thought about the unintended consequence of childless couples will have in society? For example, my DH thought it was particular ironic when a childless couple who was never matched for adoption forced the local government to redirect all their school taxes to senior housing and this resulted in a brand new senior center at the expense of the neighborhood elementary school. As I said before, couples without children have a great deal of time on their hands. I wonder what they will do with it?
Thank you for your perception about what is in vogue - that explains your ire on the matter. I've not heard of this.
All that matters is that those reading our dialogue realize that finding homes for children that need them is what adoption is for. This of course, includes children whose bio parents are in circumstances where the children are not being properly parented.
As an aside, it's commonly understood that taxes for public education benefit us all because then we are not surrounded by uneducated people.
Thank you for your perception about what is in vogue - that explains your ire on the matter. I've not heard of this.
All that matters is that those reading our dialogue realize that finding homes for children that need them is what adoption is for. This of course, includes children whose bio parents are in circumstances where the children are not being properly parented.
As an aside, it's commonly understood that taxes for public education benefit us all because then we are not surrounded by uneducated people.
How can we be surrounded with "uneducated people" (aka children) if society is composed of an increasing percentage of childless couples? Isn't that exactly the legal argument to transfer tax funds to projects like senior centers and senior housing and away from public education?
And why would childless couples engage in a dialogue to find children homes where they are not being properly parented when childless couples are seen has villains/destroyers of families. What you don't seem to get is that your ostracizing these couples due to a medical issue (inability to have children) and then blaming them for all society problems because society cannot take care of negligent and abused children. I cannot imagine why childless couples are frustrated when Foster care directors will not work with infertile couples because "they are just not committed enough to reunification." And now public education supporters are upset that childless couples are upset that they don't support public education. Also, make sure you call them selfish, I'm sure that will make them feel all warm and fuzzy.
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