The ambivalence of adoption : adoptive families’ stories

The making of family through adoption is an emotionally and politically charged legal and social process. Both its historical and contemporary manifestations are characterised by ambivalence. Contemporary domestic adoption in the UK is at a point of profound reflection, as many of its ambivalent features are articulated at the levels of national policy making as well as within the micro political sphere of family life. Drawing on an online archive of adoption stories, in particular blogs written by adoptive parents, this article attends to the affective ways in which this ambivalence manifests within adoptive families. Queer theoretical resources are used to engage with themes of haunting, absence and loss, the strange temporalities of adoptive kinship and the complex politics of undoing at the heart of adoption

Intercountry Adoption Agencies and the HCIA

This report discusses concerns raised by participants of Thematic Area 3 (Intercountry Adoption Agencies and the HCIA) of the International Forum on Intercountry Adoption and Global Surrogacy held in August 2014. The aim is to report the views of those participating in this area on the issues raised by the Hague Conference (HCCH) as likely to be matters of concern at the 4th Speial Commission scheduled for June 2015. After an opening session, the Area shared sessions with 4 of the other Thematic Areas and in the reports on those joint sessions there will inevitably be some overlap with the reports from the other areas involved, but this report will seek to view issues from the perspective of the agencies and the Central Authorities responsible for accrediting them and delegating activities as allowed under the 1993 Convention. The issues discussed included the meaning of subsidiarity and the ‘best interests of the child’; the extent to which agencies in receiving States took on board the views of first parents and of the country of origin of the child; the crisis facing agencies and other accredited bodies as the number of intercountry adoptions falls while the children involved are more likely to have ‘special needs’, so that the task of selecting and preparing prospective adoptive parents - and the provision of post-adoption support - becomes more complex at a time when income is falling. This led to an exploration of the meaning of special needs and how agencies should identify such adoptions. Throughout the sessions participants examined the argument that agencies, which had been seen as a solution to the problems of independent adoptions, have become a part of the problem and at worst accused of trafficking and ‘rescue’, ignoring the principle of subsidiarity and the rights of the child and her first family. In a joint session with Thematic Area 5 the possible lessons for cross-border surrogacy from sixty years intercountry adoption were explored and the arguments for a new Hague Convention to deal with this activity examined, with a particular focus on the possibility of accrediting persons and bodies involved

Force, fraud, and coercion : Bridging from knowledge of intercountry adoption to global surrogacy

This report discusses concerns raised by participants of Thematic Area 4 (Force, Fraud and Coercion) of the International Forum on Intercountry Adoption and Global Surrogacy held in August 2014. There has been a significant body of research on intercountry adoption practices over the past 30 years; force, fraud, and coercion have been identified in a small but important component of the literature. However, this knowledge in intercountry adoption has not yet truly bridged into research in global surrogacy with some recent exceptions. Learning from the past of ICA and connecting the evidence is particularly relevant due to the fact that the need for international law focused on global surrogacy and issues of parentage has been considered. The lessons learned from a history of corruption and human rights abuses are important to integrate when formulating future international law and regulations to protect vulnerable peoples in global surrogacy practices. Concepts of exploitation and human trafficking are explored with considerations of how to prevent, protect, and prosecute as emergent focal points of discourse. Effective prosecution of crimes, implications for a convention on global surrogacy, exploitation in global surrogacy arrangements, emotional safeguards for surrogate mothers, limited knowledge about the sense of origin, and experiences of children born through surrogacy are all areas in need of continued research

Early developmental and psychosocial risks and longitudinal behavioral adjustment outcomes for preschool-age girls adopted from China

The central goal of this longitudinal study was to examine behavioral adjustment outcomes in a sample of preschool-age adopted Chinese girls. Research examining the effects of institutional deprivation on post-adoption behavioral outcomes for internationally adopted children has been constrained by the frequent unavailability of data on the institutional experiences of adopted children. Using child-level measures of the residual effects of pre-adoption deprivation or adversity, the present study of 452 preschool-age girls adopted from China tested the hypothesis that these measures will better predict behavioral adjustment (as measured on the CBCL/1½–5) than age at adoption (AAA), used conventionally as a proxy measure of the magnitude of deprivation effects. Along with AAA (M = 13.1 months, SD = 5.1), our measures were used to predict behavioral adjustment at two time points (Mage = 2.7 years at Time 1 and 4.8 years at Time 2). There was strong stability in behavioral adjustment across time, and the regression results showed that delays in social skills, refusal/avoidance behaviors, and crying/clinging behaviors at the time of adoption, rather than AAA, predicted behavioral adjustment outcomes

Life Stories of International Romanian Adoptees: A Narrative Study

This study sought to explore the life stories of Romanian adoptees who were internationally adopted following the fall of communism in 1989. Ten participants were recruited via social media and took part in a life stories interview. Data were analysed using narrative analysis, which led to the development of four life chapters centred around identity construction: Chapter 1: Setting the scene – The adoption story; Chapter 2: Constructing the self; Chapter 3: Who am I? Quest for self-discovery; and Chapter 4: Negotiating the selves. Clinical implications, research limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed

Global Commercial Surrogacy and International Adoption: Parallels and Differences

Over the decades, there have been numerous trends in the formation of family for those experiencing infertility. Adoption – initially domestic but now mostly international – has long been a prevailing method, with a dual outcome of also finding homes for parentless children. Those would-be parents with a stronger desire for genetic relatedness have turned to assisted reproductive technologies for the creation of their families. In the 21st century, capitalising on globalisation and advances in medical sciences and communication, global commercial surrogacy (GCS) is emerging as a dominant method of family formation. In seeking to publish this article in Adoption & Fostering, our primary objective was to provide its readership with an introductory look at GCS, thereby expanding an awareness of surrogacy to an audience whose work has traditionally been concerned with the care and protection of children through foster care and adoption. A secondary aim was to see where the long-standing field of adoption could potentially inform the burgeoning field of global commercial surrogacy. To achieve these objectives, we use international adoption and the adoption triangle as a framework, as we look at the similarities and differences between: (1) the adoptive and commissioning parents; (2) the birth mother and the surrogate; and (3) the adopted children and the children born of global surrogacy

Intentions and Results: A Look Back at the Adoption and Safe Families Act

Compiles papers and policy briefs examining the intended and unintended consequences for children, families, and the child welfare system of the 1997 law to prioritize child safety in case decision making and connect children to permanent families

DOMA and Diffusion Theory: Ending Animus Legislation through a Rational Basis Approach

Same-sex couple rights are the topic of much discussion and debate. There are court challenges to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) as well as proposed marriage statutes. The message and the structure for the recognition of same-sex rights need to be modified. This Article proposes applying, for the first time in the area, modern sociology theory, specifically Diffusion Theory, to change how the message is delivered. Using Diffusion Theory to change the message frame will change judicial decisions. By using the backdrop of the Florida adoption statute, a comparison between the successful challenges to the Florida statute is made to the current challenges to DOMA. This challenge shows how, through the Diffusion lens, same-sex couples were able to change judicial opinion through empathy

Overhauling Russia’s Child Welfare System : Institutional and Ideational Factors Behind the Paradigm Shift

Peer reviewe