Legality vs. ethics in adoption?

In general, just because something is legal, that doesn't make it ethical. And just because something is illegal, that's not enough to make it unethical.

This is something I teach my students in my ethics courses every semester.

For many years in a large part of this country, slavery was legal. But that didn't make it ethical.

For many years, various drugs were legal in this country, but that didn't automatically mean it was ethical to do drugs. (Or, now that we have made many drugs illegal, we might point out that doesn't automatically mean doing those drugs is unethical.)

If "legal" and "ethical" meant the same thing, then it would always be wrong to change the law. Clearly, that is not so. The laws are our best attempt to codify ethics, but it is imperfect. Sometimes we get things wrong. And some things we don't want punishable as crimes, even while we believe them wrong (we don't want to give the government too much power). For instance, even though adultery is wrong, we don't put you in jail for it.

Just because something is legal, it is always an open question whether it is right.

And just because people disagree about what is ethical doesn't mean that there are no right answers. Some people are wrong about their ethical judgments. (And perhaps, we are all wrong some of the time.) Nor does it mean that ethics changes.

My adoption was probably not legal, even by 1965 standards. Definitely would not be legal in 2009. Hey!! Thats the first time Ive written the new year & I didnt screw it up, lol.

There were all sorts of "Daddy" issues, two different states were involved, and last but certainly not least, The Catholic Church had their greedy little paws involved, too. It was pretty messy.

I think very few adoptions are ethical, especially when you look at the rate of a parents who ignore the fact that the adoption was supposed to be "open", and choose to change their minds. I think ALL closed adoptions are unethical, regardless of the n mom's situation.

I also think all international adoptions are unethical, and would bet money that a large majority are illegal.

Pre-birth matching, "Dear Birth Mother Letters", all that garbage- should be illegal. They are subtle coercion tactics, and should be illegal. And yes, they are unethical.

Unfortunately, everyone's ethics are different, and they fly right out the window when a fresh new baby is at stake.

I do not believe my adoption was 100% legal. The maternity home/agency never had a license, never turned over their files to the State of Florida, never conducted home studies, and was closed several times for baby-selling. My adoptive father admitted to me last year that is was an open secret that if you could afford it, you could go to Gainesville [FL] and get a baby without "jumping through all the hoops" that CHS and Catholic Charities would require.

IMO, my adoption was illegal and unethical, but it is also 45 years old, so what the heck can you do?

Here is a link to an investigation by the Florida House of Representatives into "my" maternity home -

There is legal and then there is your personal barometer. International to me was extremely distastefu. The primary reason people were doing it= no chance of the natural parents ever being identified, US AP's wanted white children, too many cases of stolen children and unsavory pay offs. The sales pitch from the agencies included items that should give any reasonable person cause for NOT moving forward. I feel terrible there are orphanages of kids who do need parents, but the margin for funky busines=too large. If you do any amount of research on international adoptions, there just seems to be far more common unsavory aspect both the US part of that equation and the in-country resources--everything from payola fom local hotels whose only business is to house AP's during the waiting periods, bribes etc that just seem to be the "understood" portion of that equation. The stories are getting out of hand. Plus, there is a HUGE increase of these ADOPTED international children being sent back into be readopted (makes me incredibly angry) because raising that child wasn't what the parents expected (turning your cheek the other way and not going into the situation with open eyes will give you the unexpected).

The US domestic adoption facilitators are another one that I do not think are ethical (again my personal feelings) and facilitators are NOT legal in every state for a reason.

Most of the adoption agencies we talked to were ones that were too focused on "helping the AP's" interests at the expense of the natural parents. This may not be perfect, however we made sure the agency charged the same rates regardless of the ethnicity of the child. I neded to hear from the natural parents mouth how they came to choose the agency she was working with (many of the agencies we talked to basically forbade us to ask this question--which made me question their methods). We also wanted the option to pay directly for counseling for the mother through a counselor of her choice--not the agencies. We also needed to speak to the father of the child (I truly believe that most mothers know who the father is and if there is a chance of multiple fathers she knows who they all are to make sure) to make sure his rights were protected. The whole idea of making sure that the natural parents had truly understood all of their options and us being able to verify it was a big deal to us ethically.

I know we were deemed a pain in the a$$ by the agencies we talked to and many didn't hesitate to try to man handle us into their normal streamlined adoptive parents who didn't care about the process which is why we ultimately went with a teeny tiny agency who I know worked with us in a way that allowed me to sleep at night. I also know because we continue to talk to her--that my child's parent are doing well.

I am not saying our line of thinking is for everyone who may have a different barometer--but having our child question us at a later date about the agency and circumstances and not being able to walk through the specifics of that barometer is a conversation that I think many if not most adoptive parents are not going to feel good about and WOULD avoid if there was any funny business.

JMHO

There was nothing ethical about my son's adoption nor was it 100% legal.

I wasn't told my rights, nobody went through the paperwork with me period, all the information on it came from my mother and there were contradictions, it is debatable whether I signed anything as nobody can find any paperwork signed by me, there was no reason for my son to be adopted (I wanted to raise him) and recently I found out the adoptive parents received a letter that was supposedly written by me outlining how I wished my son to be raised yet I never wrote them a letter. My parents wanted my son to be adopted and the adoption agency were quite happy to back their decision so based on that and they knew I was naive they basically lied to me stating they would support my decision to raise him but did nothing to stop the adoption.

On this basis my son's adoption comes under a forced adoption which is illegal but I didn't know this until 23 years late by which time it was too late to do anything about it.

Here are some examples of official behavior that has taken place in the experiences of mothers who have lost children:

Nurses and hospital personnel taking babies from their mothers at birth and refusing to allow any contact between mothers and their infants. This was done before any papers or agreements had been signed. The mother was the legal parent and the child was not in any danger from her. Nurses would say "this baby is being adopted and you cannot see him/her."

Hospitals posted armed security guards outside of mothers' doors to prevent them from seeing, touching, or having contact with their infants. The doctor was the adoption "arranger" along with an attorney.The mother was the legal parent, and had not signed any papers. She was not a danger,and was healthy, not on drugs, not unstable, just unmarried.

Mothers who used temporary cradle care for their infants (which they had been offered and which is legal to use as an option) were subjected to threatening phone calls from the agency, telling them to "get down here and sign surrender documents or we will terminate your parental rights in court."The threat was real.Social workers did terminate mothers in court once they got the babies into temporary cradle care..

Legal standards....Binding documents are supposed to be signed according to a legal standard. The signer is supposed to be of sound mind and body, and not subjected to threats, fear, or coercion, nor undue influence of another person. The signer is also supposed to be old enough or accompanied by an adult or a legal representative.

Very rarely were any of these above legal requirements met in the baby scoop era. They are frequently violated in the adoption Industry of today, as well, although the age of majority has dropped to 18.

"Legal" simply means the adoption adhered to the formal process that is dictated by law.

"Ethical" is a broader term that includes a consideration of what is "right" or "moral" or "humane." You can be involved in an adoption that is legal in that it conforms to the procedural requirements. But this adoption could still be considered unethical if is immoral, inhumane, or violates the rights of another person.

There is no "ethical" in adoption. Adoption gives those adopting the right to legally seal a child's birth certificate and legally separate that child from her or his parents and family.

Adoption allows people to settle for the idea that a child was "abandoned" without any legally required searching for a child's parents and family. However, that wouldn't help the ones wanting to parent - the child's family may not have abandoned their child and they may want to keep their child.

That's why it's called legalized child trafficking. Nothing ethical about it.

Well, as a police officer and someone who was very involved in the legal process surrounding both adoptions I've been a part of (excluding my own since I was too young then) I'm confident that they were conducted legally. When we lived in India my wife and I had to be present for everything that was done in the legal portion and I saw the review that went into the file. For the second one, our Province has an almost non-existent number of adoption appeals for foster adoptions due to the checks and balances in the system and from what I saw (both the TPR process and the adoption process) I'm confident it was done legally..

As for ethics, well there are so many different types of ethics (meta ethics, normative ethics, value ethics, human rights, business rights, applied ethics...) that we need to decide just which standard to apply.

Also, we all get our sense of ethics from different sources such as "God", agreements between people, the world around us, a consideration of duty or through consideration of the consequences of various actions. In general though, ethics are not set in stone but can be discussed in one way or another and decided upon through agreement with regard to the practicalities involved.

I think that makes it all virtually impossible for us here to come to agreement on what is ethical. Perhaps the only ethical standard that can be applied at the moment is the legal standard and as that changes so does our personal views on how ethical it may or may not be.

Our first was of a family member where mom and my husband and I had our own attorneys, dad consented after we found him the second time.

The last two were eight and fourteen. In both cases mom and dad consented to TPR. These were family members in kinship care agreements so we knew exactly where the kids came from and their situations.

I feel these were both legal and ethical and I am secure in the knowledge that my kids know the truth.