Guest Blogger Barbara McArtney on Why the Adoption Establishment Annoys Me
REFORM Talk begins the Unofficial Why the Adoption Establishment Annoys the 
out of Me week with a bonus guest post by Barbara McArtney. Barbara is an adult adoptee, adoptive parent, lawyer and social worker. She has worked on reform for many years.
IA is about competing for children on a financial basis. No oversight, no respect for country, triad or human rights. No real social work or reunification, /extended family placement efforts. Even if the $ doesn’t end up in a directors, facilitator or official’s or birthparent’s pocket, the paradigm is the same. AID and Support = referrals. Regardless of the US legal definition of trafficking – this IS trafficking. It is buying babies and inducing the creation of laundered orphans in too many cases if not most in places like Nepal. The industry dominated the meaningless Hague reforms that just encourage agencies to CYA not improve practices. Every country the Industry enters has been dirtied and only created problems and anger in its wake. If this is such wonderful, helpful work, where’s the accolades from countries, HR groups and ANYONE outside the industry? It faces nothing but criticism from all but its insiders. There has been a lack of any meaningful enforcement or improvement. Just the same rush to country to make as much money as possible before it closes due to their own illegal actions. There is no preservation of identity or family relationships. The closed model of adoption is the norm and has been proven by research to be bad for children yet it continues.
I do believe that adoption can be a viable solution in some countries but not in the way its practiced currently. Get the money out and then we will know the REAL need (or lack thereof) for international adoption. If the money were taken out, how fast would the profiteering industry vanish? The agencies doing this work may have had good intentions going in but they have only contributed to the problems by succumbing to market demand, baby bidding, corruption and trafficking. Any agency who says they don’t play this game IS LYING unless their fee structure is radically different from the norm and 100% transparent for ANYONE not just COA or state licensing. Until we face up to the ugly truth that this is money driven, not child or family centered nothing will change and the US will continue to be the biggest offender.
USG needs to stop this on our end with enforcement, reform and strict transparent fee caps.where there is infrastructure to control it. No developing country will be able to stop corruption where there is this much financial inducement to create ” inventory”.
This industry’s influence is rapidly waning. They have discredited themselves, they been shown to be harmful and an enemy to children and family rights. JCICS is laughable in their efforts to reinvent themselves as champions of children after every dirty trick in the book hasn’t increased adoption revenues. Now they want be THE ANSWER? They are refashioning as selfless purveyors of humanitarian aid and world wide networks for all children. (provided someone will pay them to do so or they can eventually squeeze in adoption!)
The “industry” stinks like a rotten fish from the head down.
REFORM Puzzle Piece
What a fantastic blog post! Thanks!
It is a shame that the entire industry is geared toward profit, especially when it's children we are talking about. International adoptions are not much different in that it does cost money. I doubt the mom of a to be adopted child is even helped in any way in the foreign adoptions. I would love to adopt a child, but can not afford it as the system exists today. Foster care is something that would break my heart over and over should I not be allowed to keep the child, which is likely. I want a child yet the one that could have a decent life with me can't be found due to the system we currently have. It is such a shame.
The money also makes international adopters a more wealthy population. Other than immigrants, adopting relatives outside the US, my clients tend to be upper or middle income because of the excessively high costs. Lower income families are shut out. US adoption is expensive and risky and the children that are not in demand are the ones who that really need adoption.
Yet some US babies are taken out of the country for adoption abroad. Supposedly most of these birth parents want them to go to a foreign country or they can't be placed in this country. Nonsense. Id have no problem placing any race/ethnicity baby right here in NYS. Oh, but then fees would be limited. It pays so much better when APs are in Sweden! It isn't just IA OUTSIDE the US that's corrupt. It both starts and ends here.
Excellent post, Barbara!
There's little hope right now where getting the money out of the process is concerned. In the last year someone I know well pushed the point (suggesting that limiting the money in IA would solve many problems) with one of the US officials charged with overseeing IA. He was told in response that he was "a dangerous person with bad ideas." Until and unless we get some officials in charge who are not in the pocket of the adoption establishment, nothing will change. It's like a game of chess in which they've made sure that everyone–every official and accreditation body—who might really regulate and reform adoption practices effectively, is already in their pocket. Witness peer review by COA. And who's on the board of COA. And the official mentioned above. They play the game of power and politics very well. We, not so well. But still, as you point out, their game is catching up with them. Thanks again, Barbara, for an excellent post.
if only I were not preaching to the choir….
Barbara, we have a lot of the general public that reads this blog, so I am quite sure that more than the choir has read your words 🙂