Someone asked: "Also isn't a child only separated by their family if they are unfit to parent and cannot?

tish

uh..no.

i was told that there was absolutely NO EFFING WAY i could care for my child, hence i should give him up. when i changed my mind, i wasn't supported, i wasn't told, "we wish you the best", nor was i told, "i'm glad you decided that you want to keep your baby." i was told, "you will cause the aparents so much pain", "this is unfair what you are doing the THEM", " we will have to report you to social services, because you told us that you were a college student and had no resources", "it's just the HORMONES" talking."

it was clear. that my baby was wanted. it is also clear that WHEN A WOMAN CHANGES HER MIND that her baby is wanted. this is why there are laws to take away her rights as soon as possible. for, if adoption were about placing babies whose mother and fathers really were sure they wanted to parent, why would we need all of this legislation, and coercive tactics?

adoption (for some) is not about unwanted kids, it's about "healthy, cute, cuddly infants", fresh out of the oven, born from young health women, for profit.

i have a question for those who wish to throw up this "red herring": should an aparent return a child who has not experienced abuse and neglect, to his/her aparent if it is contested?--hell, i might actually post this question.

Heather B

My mother was NOT unfit. She loved me very much.

They told her I had died at 3 days old. She later found this was a lie - it was too late and she couldn't find me.

Blanket across-the-board assumptions really bug me too.

Gaia Raain

Nope. Unfortunately, most of those in the general population are unable to see that adoption is human trafficking. It is touted as a wonderful, beautiful, humanitarian thing to do...forgetting that in order to build that new family, the original one had to be torn apart. And also forgetting that this family should NEVER be torn apart unless absolutely necessary.

Youth won't last forever.
Poor people raise kids all the time, and do a great job of it.
The only time it's NECESSARY to separate a family is when abuse/neglect is present (which hasn't happened yet at birth, unless the mother is an active addict).

myst1998

No I don't condone human trafficking and I also detest adoption and everything it stands for.

The person who said this in a question, the statement about parents being unfit is the only reason children are separated or whatever is obviously ignorant to the truth of adoption and what lurks beneath its media portrayed image. Children are kidnapped every day off people who are very fit parents, some make it on the news, some don't. We don't question whether or not they are fit parents rather they get sympathy and help to find their missing children. Many mothers and parents who lose their children to adoption are in the same boat only without the help and support from the wider community.

It is so easy to judge another person's situation until you have walked in their shoes. No one who has not been coerced, bullied or plain out lied to in order to sign a piece of paper taking their child has the right to comment on what coercion is or is not as every person is different and unique.

grapesgum

Whoever said that has his/her head in the sand. It sounds like the typical hogwash that adoptive parents are fed by adoption workers. I do not condone human trafficking either. Children who are abused should be removed from the situation immediately. However, DSS makes more money by removing children for poverty and then paying strangers to care for them.

The incentive for DSS to remove children is clearly articulated in this article:

"Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness
DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families"

I noted two very upsetting facts in the article
1) The under 1 year old babies are targeted as they are highly desirable and are easy to sell.
2) 68% child removals are not from abuse but poverty!!!

Quotes from the article:

"The way that the adoption bonuses work is that each state is given a baseline number of expected adoptions based on population.

For every child that DSS can get adopted, there is a bonus of $4,000 to $6,000.

But that is just the starting figure in a complex mathematical formula in which each bonus is multiplied by the percentage that the state has managed to exceed its baseline adoption number. The states must maintain this increase in each successive year. [Like compound interest.] The bill reads: "$4,000 to $6,000 will be multiplied by the amount (if any) by which the number of foster child adoptions in the State exceeds the base number of foster child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year." In the "technical assistance" section of the bill it states that, "the Secretary [of HHS] may, directly or through grants or contracts, provide technical assistance to assist states and local communities to reach their targets for increased numbers of adoptions for children in foster care." The technical assistance is to support "the goal of encouraging more adoptions out of the foster care system; the development of best practice guidelines for expediting the termination of parental rights; the development of special units and expertise in moving children toward adoption as a permanent goal; models to encourage the fast tracking of children who have not attained 1 year of age into pre-adoptive placements; and the development of programs that place children into pre-adoptive placements without waiting for termination of parental rights." "

"According to Cornell University, about 68% of all child protective cases "do not involve child maltreatment." The largest percentage of CPS/DSS cases are for "deprivation of necessities" due to poverty. So, if the natural parents were given the incredible incentives and services listed above that are provided to the adoptive parents, wouldnâ€™t it stand to reason that the causes for removing children in the first place would be eliminated? How many less children would enter foster care in the first place? The child protective budget would be reduced from $12 billion to around $4 billion. Granted, tens of thousands of social workers, administrators, lawyers, juvenile court personnel, therapists, and foster parents would be out of business, but we would have safe, healthy, intact families, which are the foundation of any society. "

Makes me sick to read it. Upper middle class and middle uses their baby lust to dehumanize poor people and strip them of their children. Real nice.

Kazi

I agree with Randy.

Unless we are talking about babies who were taken from their mothers at gun point and who did not sign any papers, then well, I don't consider those "adoptions" in the first place.

Clearly children are not always adopted because the parents are unfit. Women make the decision to relinquish for a myriad of reasons.

Randy B

No, I certainly don't condone human trafficking. But at the same time I don't view adoption as human trafficking and I don't think the poster of the above comment in another thread did either. Obviously you do ...and it's your right to believe what you want no matter how misguided I may feel that stance is. I'm not going to try to talk you out of that frame of mind.

At the same time I don't condone anyone stirring the pot over a legitimately asked question by someone who, I think, meant no harm. If someone is misinformed then the responsible thing to do is correct them in a civil way. Anyone can feel free to post all the propaganda they want from any anti adoption websites. There are just as many articles out there on reputable websites that hold the other point of view.

If adoption is a billion dollar industry catering to the adoptive parent I guess I, and thousand like me, have been able to cheat the system. Both my adoptions have cost my wife and I a grand total of $1000 Cdn ($800 US for the first one and free for the second so with the exchange rate to Cdn funds I peg it about a 1k give or take a bit).

Me Vale

That someone was me and you still have not answered me. So you are telling me that people are forced to sign papers relinquishing their parental rights? Is that it? I have read articles and they are all just vague. They don't give specifics. Are there any good ones that will be very specific? Give examples of this? I mean most children (at least the ones that we were considering adopting) are already in the system, right? I am not talking about a Juno here where the rich lady is waiting for the teenage mom to give up her kid. This is not a third world country and parents do have rights.

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