Thanks for that clear explanation! I, too, want moral and ethical, not just legal. But, of course, it’s the unethical agencies that are the real problem.

I’m not sure what kind of evidence will satisfy people that an agency is unethical, because even faciliators whose agencies have been closed down are still defended because they weren’t prosecuted. I don’t think we’re going to see actual prosecution of agencies. Short of that, I still think: Why choose an agency with some questions about its ethics swirling around when there are so many others out there to choose from? The only answer I’ve ever gotten from anyone (and it was true of my too, initially, but not now) was the promise of a quicker referral.

Heidi

I personally would love to see the agencies do so much more for the community in addition to the orphanages themselves. I think supporting the orphanages to ensure the children are well cared for (all of the children, not just those assigned to that particular agency) should be a given. I don’t know how effective things like counseling would be since it’s not really solving the fundamental issue which is causing parents to have to give up their children-extreme poverty. It breaks my heart that any parent feels they have to give their child up for adoption to give it a better life (but that happens everywhere…even here in America) but what bothers me even more is the fact there are most likely people (I don’t know who…agencies/facilitators, baby finders, etc) who are exploiting these peoples extreme poverty and poor living conditions in order to gain custody of these children. It doesn’t matter if the parents are willingly giving up the children if they are doing it because someone is praying on their vulnerable state in order to procure babies for us.

Christina made a statement about ensuring the best interests of the children are taken into account before an adoption goes forth. I think the sad thing about this system is even if these children are being bought (which I don’t agree with) or a family is pressured into giving that child up, I am pretty sure all documentation regarding parentage is either destroyed, or more likely never existed in the first place. So what does this mean for the children? I believe the children should be with birthparents first if that’s a viable option (no matter how poor they are or if we can give the child a better life, we are not entitled to anyone else’s child, not in our country or anyone else’s) or if they could live their entire lives in a good foster home that would be a better option for the children who come to the system illegally or immorally. But what about those that will have to stay in the orphanages? Is it fair that they will have to live their entire lives without a family at all because of all of this? That’s what I worry about, I worry about the children that are already in the orphanages and have no hope of a family because of this. I personally think every child deserves a family and I hate to think of any of them growing up without one (no matter how good the orphanages are, they are still institutions). Does this mean I think the children should be adopted even if the information can’t be verified, honestly I don’t know. Maybe if everyone knew from the get go and there were no more lies so at least families could give the children as much information as possible about their start in life. Which would the child want ultimately; to grow up in a loving home in America knowing they may have been taken from their birth family but there was no way to reunite them, or for them to grow up in an orphanage their entire lives knowing that at least they still have their country and their culture even if they don’t have the family? Tough questions.

So this is why I would like to see the agencies pour their money into the communities so that parents don’t have to make this difficult decision and they are less vulnerable to unscrupulous people trying to satisfy their American (and other countries too, I know we aren’t the only ones adopting from Vietnam) clients need for babies.

Oh yea, I also wanted to say thanks for the definitions…I realize I have been thinking in legal terms and not ethical or moral ones….too bad we couldn’t just use legal, that would be so much more cut and dried. But I personally don’t think legal is enough, we are all paying huge fees to the agencies thinking that humanitarian work is being done…they should be doing it if for no other reason than that (but of course I hope they have a commitment to the country and WANT to do more). I think where we may all differ is in exactly where that money should be going to.
Tracy

This is an assumption by the countries we adopt from, and by many of us, that children are better off brought up in wealthy societies. While I can understand this perspective coming from the countries that have actually had to live in poverty and know the pain of starvation, on the part of us wealthy Americans, it is simply arrogance.
The truth is that the very best thing is for these children to be raised by their first families and for their families to have the resources to raise them.
That is why I believe that the only moral/ethical thing to use an agency that is not only offering adoption services, as a last best option for children, but also working within the country to change the systems that keep people in poverty, to change the legacy of poverty on individual families. It is not enough to adopt a child. Adoption does not solve the problem of wealth imbalance in the world, in fact in many places, it adds to it.
What would happen if ALL adoptive families would only use agencies that also have child sponsorship programs, promoted domestic adoption, have ongoing programs that teach people how to be gainfully employed in their countries, how to run small business and give them micro-loans to do it.
I believe when we take a child from their birth country, we have an obligation to that country.
I know this is a radical concept of adoption being the last best option, but I believe that if we are not doing all we can to make adoption “safe, legal and rare”, then we are being purely selfish on this road of adoption. While that may be our prerogative, it is neither moral nor ethical.

There are agencies where they are involved in illegal activities - just watching the lists and blogs and news of NOIDs, you can find them. There are agencies that are on most “good” lists - as in, they are a good, honest, ethical agency to go with. There are around 5 of them from what I can tell. These are usually the agencies that go above and beyond and are ethical - I believe Holt is the one I hear about most often. Then there’s that big grey area, where these agencies are not participating in illegal activities (as far as I or anyone can tell from what I have researched and read about), but they aren’t necessarily ethical because they don’t go above and beyond as much as agencies such as Holt. What catagory are they in? Legal. Not horrible, as in, you should run screaming from them. Not off-the-charts fantastic. Legal - big, grey area.

I think what I’m saying is - while legal shouldn’t be what we shoot for when adopting (we should and agencies should be shooting for ethical), I don’t necessarily believe it’s the villian. That award goes to the agencies contributing to corruption and illegal things, like baby trafficking. We classify things so strongly in the bad vs good area - I think that the grey, legal area gets left out of the discussion quite a bit.

But if we agree to just let our own moral compasses be our guide, that still allows for PAPs to be ignorant and turn a blind eye to corruption, does it not? If they justify their adoption and agencies by just being *legal* that still may leave a lot to be desired, no?