Adoption

7 Pages 1842 Words

At the present time, facing the issue of adoption ethics forces us to confront a highly uncomfortable situation. This case is especially true of international adoptions. A critical analysis of adoption practices as they relate to adoption within Canada as well as between Canada and Romania will follow. Encompassed within this will be the changing trends that have occurred with regards to the rights of the child and privacy of information exchanged between the adopting parties. In this field the rights of the child are not always clear cut and obvious. In recent years, the issue of opening sealed adoption records has presented a challenge to secrecy and anonymity. The implications for community rehabilitation practitioners are numerous. Nowhere has a shift of values and powers been more apparent than in the practice of adoption.
Intercountry Adoption
Intercountry adoption has become an important social policy issue in Canada. Almost unheard of until post World War II period, the numbers have grown from less than 10 a year when records were first kept in 1970 (Altstein, 1991) to an estimate of more than 2400 a year in 2001 (Tepper, T. et al. 2002). This means that nonrelative adoptions in Canada are now as likely to involve children who were born outside of Canada as those born within Canada. Most of the children from out-of-country have a different racial background. The question for policymakers, service deliverers, prospective adoptive parents, and biological parents deciding whether to relinquish their child, is whether there is enough information exchanged or not in the best interests of the child.
With the increase in the number of children being adopted internationally, and the shift in the primary motivation for adoption, discussion has surfaced with respect to what Tizard (1991) has called the “morality” of intercountry adoption. Three major positions have emerged in the debate; one which opposes intercountry adoption,...