Voiding Adoptions in North Carolina

Have you followed the news about the North Carolina Supreme Court voiding a second-parent adoption involving a lesbian couple?  Most have focused on it as a GLBT parenting issue, and it is an unconscionable ruling from that perspective.  But the commentary at Related Topics looks at it as a purely adoption issue:

The case begins with a familiar if sad scenario. Julie Boseman and Melissa Jarrell, a lesbian couple, decided to raise a child together. Jarrell became pregnant via insemination with sperm from an anonymous provider. Their son, Jacob, was born in October, 2002.


Jarrell and Boseman lived together with Jacob until 2006, at which point they separated. There’s no doubt that each of the women acted as Jacob’s mother before their separation, sharing the responsibilities and obligations of parenting. Nevertheless, when they split up Jarrell limited Boseman’s time with Jacob. (Should it be important to you, I’ll note that Boseman paid child support though there was no legal order directing her to do so.)

This far the case resembles a string of others I’ve blogged about where lesbian co-mothers end up in bitter litigation. But there is a very important additional factor here: Jarrell and Boseman recognized that after Jacob’s birth Jarrell had legal rights as a parent while Boseman did not. In order to secure Boseman’s rights, the two women went to court in 2005 and requested that Boseman be recognized as an adoptive parent of Jacob. The court complied with this request.

* * *

Anyway, the women completed a second-parent adoption, which meant that both women had full legal rights as parents of Jacob.     With the adoption in place, when the women split up, you end up with an ordinary custody fight between parents.   That’s never a good thing, but it’s a familiar one–the result generally turns on a court’s assessment of the best interests of the child. . . .

[But here} the NC Supreme Court ruled that the adoption was void ab initio. That means it is as if it were never concluded.


* * *

Generally speaking you cannot challenge an adoption several years after it has been completed.   (This is clearly the case in NC–check out the first lines of the dissenting opinion–page 24.)  There are good and obvious reasons for this.   Once an adoption is completed (here with the complete consent and participation of the first parent), the child’s life is structured around that legal fact.   To allow someone to undo it several years later is to completely disrupt the child’s world.

* * *

The North Carolina court’s opinion doesn’t just apply to Jacob. It applies to all the other second-parent adoptions that have been conducted there–or so it would appear. All the second-parent adoption completed in NC, even those where the two parents are perfectly happy raising their kids in a unitary family, are void. With the stroke of the pen, the NC court deprived all those families of the legal security that the adoptions provided.

What do you think?

The Eyes Have It

I've been reminded several times this week of a post from a while back.  Let me tell you about the reminders, and then I'll tell you which post.

First, when I was looking at Hyphen Magazine to find Lisa Lee's body image article for this post, I ran across this preview to an article about plastic surgery in the Asian American community.  Included are before and after pictures for double eyelid surgery.

Second, Zoe and I were playing Farmville and she wanted to make changes to our farmer avatar.  Not only did we have to give her a bob haircut so she would match Zoe and Maya again, we had to change her eyes to the more rounded eyes.

So do you recall the post?  It's Eyes Wide Open: Surgery to Westernize the Eyes of an Asian Child, about a father who had the eyes of his adopted Asian daughter "fixed:"

The speaker was a proud father. To illustrate his comments about a piece of art that celebrated the wonders of modern medicine (and which he had just donated to a local hospital), he told a story about his adopted Asian daughter. He described her as a beautiful, happy child in whom he took much delight. Her life, he told the audience, had been improved dramatically by the miracle of modern medicine. When she joined her new Caucasian family, her eyes, like those of many people of Asian descent, lacked a fold in the upper eyelid, and that lack was problematic—in his view—because it made her eyes small and sleepy and caused them to shut completely when she smiled. A plastic surgeon himself, he knew she did not need to endure this hardship, so he arranged for her to have surgery to reshape her eyes. The procedure, he explained, was minimally invasive and maximally effective. His beautiful daughter now has big round eyes that stay open and shine even when she smiles.

Even two years after learning of this case, I still have a visceral reaction of horror. . . .

Zoe's Profile

Zoe is so excited to be profiled in Mei Magazine (ANYONE can be profiled!  Just email them!)(Oh, there was another profile on the page, but I erased it to preserve that child's privacy).  And she found out it a really cool way -- a friend called to say she had seen Zoe in the magazine.  Sydney was looking through the magazine and saw the picture and said, "That looks like Zoe," but she really didn't think it WAS Zoe.  Then when she saw the end of the profile which said that Zoe lived in Texas with her sister Maya, she knew it was her Zoe!

Zoe is over the moon, was dancing around the house singing, "I'm in the magazine!  I'm in the magazine!"  LOL!  She feels like quite the celebrity!

Now to send in Maya's profile . . . .

Abortion, Adoption, Supply and Demand

From the Atlantic, Megan McCardle joins a discussion started by Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan (WARNING: awful photo of a real "plasticized" fetus at start of article) about whether the anti-adoption movement needs to do more to facilitate adoption, concluding:

I find it far-fetched that women are having abortions because no one is willing to help them give the baby up for adoption--there are lots of people and agencies that will not only help them, but pay a substantial portion of their expenses until they deliver. They're having abortions because pregnancy is physically uncomfortable, and there's still a social stigma on women who carry a baby to term in order to give it away.

What all the pieces gloss over is whether there really is a link between abortion and the low "supply" of adoptable infants.  It's much more complicated than facile assumptions will admit.  And even more difficult to figure -- if abortion does have an effect, how much of an effect does it have?

While there were initial declines of adoption placement when abortion first became legal, the continuing decline is linked to other things. With only one to three percent of unwed mothers placing children for adoption -- meaning that 97-99% parent their children -- it's really the declining stigma of single motherhood that's causing the low "supply" of adoptable infants today.  Also influencing declining rates of adoption placement is increased contraceptive use and declining pregnancy rates. Part of the complicated picture in linking abortion rates and adoption rates is that adoption rates have remained constant, while abortion rates have declined in the U.S. (All these stats can be found here).

Adoption Movie -- Change of Plans

Saturday night, January 8, a made-for-TV movie with international adoption themes, Change of Plans (not to be confused with the actual movie, Change of Plans) airs:

Up to this point, Sally Danville's life has played out just as she hoped it would. A beautiful and free-spirited musician, she and her fighter-pilot husband, Jason, live life on the go, free of domestic responsibilities. But with a single phone call from Child & Family Services case worker, Dorothy (Phylicia Rashad, The Cosby Show), she learns that things don't always go according to plan. Sally (Brooke White, American Idol) is met with the news that her best friend from college has died in a tragic accident on a Peace Corps mission and has named Sally the legal guardian of her four kids - 3 of them adopted from third-world countries. Now Sally and Jason (Joe Flanigan, Stargate Atlantis) must quickly learn to parent this instant family and help the kids deal with the culture clash of life in America. The story is both humorous and heartwarming, revealing how fulfilling life can be when you look beyond your own plans and invest in the lives of others.

 I've only found a few reviews of the upcoming movie.  Here's the line that stood out in the review at Great Dad:

Competing for attention are the emotional complexities of no fewer than eight characters, on top of a back story of why the deceased parents had collected one child from each country they visited while in the Peace Corps.

Ick.

This description in another review piqued my interest:

I was stunned by the different happening between the integration of the kids in the primary school versus the high school. I should have known that it would be different but still seeing it on screen was an eye opener.

 I haven't found any reviews from anyone knowledgeable about adoption.

I can't say I have a great feeling about the movie, but might need to watch it out of self-defense -- it's good to know what the general public is hearing about adoption and to prepare the kids for questions on the playground.

Asian Americans and the Quest for Thin

NPR's Tell Me More looks at body image issues in the Asian American community:

For many Americans, New Year's resolutions are likely to include weight loss, especially after the holidays. Body image is a thorny issue for many women of different backgrounds, including Asian-Americans. In Tell Me More's "Behind Closed Doors" segment, host Michel Martin speaks with Lisa Lee, publisher of Hyphen magazine, about body image among Asian-Americans and her own quest to be thin.

Listen to the segment here, and read Lisa Lee's article on the subject here.

Meet the Twiblings

A long -- but strangely riveting (I kept having to click the next button through all 8 pages, though I should really be grading exams!) -- and interesting and thought-provoking and disturbing and a slew of other adjectives, story about infertility and surrogacy in the New York Times.  The couple actually hired two separate surrogates at the same time to have "twiblings," a rather extreme form of artificial twinning (or is it artificial?).

Though not about adoption, and though the couple rejects adoption, there are some parallels.  The conclusion of the article illustrated that parallel for me:

Plan A — making babies with the tools you have around the house, as they say, the fun, free tools — faded into the background, and Plan B became foreground. I can count the ways Plan B is a less-desirable way to have children — the route seems to take you off the edge of the world and into the land of scrolly dragons. But when you actually go there, the map shifts. The brain’s ability to rewrite — to destinize, as it were — the birth story and turn a barn into a manger is so powerful that Plan B, all its unsexiness notwithstanding, became the best plan, because Plan B created the children that we have and are convinced we had to have.

Lots to discuss in the article, but I really don't have time -- those pesky exams!  I'd be interested to know what y'all think, though.

A haven for mothers-to-be

That's the headline to this article that talks about a maternity home that seems a little different from the norm, including the fact that the article talks of mothers-to-be instead of birthmothers (which isn't something the media tend to do without considerable education by the article's subject):

It might seem there’s not much need for maternity homes in 21st century America, where there is no longer much stigma attached to unwed motherhood.

But the organizers and residents of Hannah House, a non-profit organization that provides a place to live for women in their teens and 20s who are dealing with crisis pregnancies, said the need for such homes is greater now than it was 30 or 40 years ago.

“I’ve been involved with helping pregnant girls and women for more than 20 years,” said Glennis Woodall, founder of the organization that recently moved to East Texas.

“These young women still need help making decisions and learning practical skills that will help them provide the best possible lives for themselves and their children.”

* * *

The mothers-to-be are offered information about adoption and parenting, and are free to choose whichever alternative they believe would be best for themselves and their children.

* * *

“When I originally began working with women who had crisis pregnancies, I was part of an organization in Houston that was really focused on encouraging the women to place their babies for adoption, and that bothered me,” Woodall said. “Adoption can be a wonderful option, and we make sure the women here are aware of that opportunity for their babies, but we don’t pressure them to choose it. If they want to parent their child, we help them gain the life skills needed to be an effective mother.”

Does anyone know anything more about this organization?  Might be worthy of support . . .

Year in Review, Part II

Part I of my self-indulgent look back is here.  If you've only started reading this blog, maybe the year in review will give you some pointers to what we talk about here!  If you've been reading a while, maybe you'll recall some of these posts.  Whether old or new, Happy New Year to all my readers!

July 2010

The Theology of Adoption, critiquing the current Christian "adoption movement."

International Adoption & Bone Marrow Transplants, looking at the problems faced by international adoptees who have no information about biological family when they need a transplant.

Amy Eldridge of LWB Speaks, my summary of an extremely informative talk by the head of Love Without Boundaries, a charity working in Chinese orphanages, about the changing face of Chinese adoption and about the current challenges of orphan care in China.

Review:  Wo Ai Ni Mommy; my review of this film about an older child adoption from China.

August 2010

Back to School, Shoes Edition, explaining how shoes, especially the little Chinese shoes Maya wore when I first met her, were important on the first day of school.

"Mom, do you have an ethnic group?" How Zoe's school assignment sparked a great discussion of ethnicity, biological relationships and ancestors.

Scott Simon, "Meant to be," & Ethnicity, where I take issue with radio host Scott Simon's interview plugging his new book, where he says ethnicity doesn't matter to his daughters adopted from China.

September 2010

Cultural Assimilation -- Is it a Good Thing?; exploring whether expectations in adoption that the child change/assimilate is a good thing.

Culture, Religion & Adoption, asking whether an adoptive family has an obligation to preserve an adopted child's faith tradition when it is different from their own, particularly with older children.

Underage Mothers Consenting to Adoption, discussing the state of the law in some states that allow underage mothers to place for adoption without counseling, without lawyer representation, without judicial oversight.

October 2010

What's wrong with rescuing orphans?  Looking at the problems caused by the rescue mentality in adoption.

Where do our children fit in? Reporting from the St. John's Adoption Conference, a scholarly talk about the various "fitting-in" strategies adoptive parents of internationally adopted children imploy.

Keeping the Promise: Post-Adoption Services: the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute announces a very important new report about what's missing in post-adoption services.

November 2010

Talking Adoption to the First Grade, my foray into Maya's class to explain adoption.

Adopting Out the Children of Illegal Immigrants, discussing a Missouri case where a mother's parental rights were terminated after she was swept up in an immigration raid and her child placed for adoption.

Race-Based Adoption Fees, looking at the racist practice of charging more to adopt white babies and less to adopt African-American babies.

Intercountry Adoption, Child Laundering & the Hague, exploring the role of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption in stopping child trafficking.


December 2010
 
"Get out of my way, I'm entitled to adopt!" Looking at how anti-UNICEF sentiment among some adoptive parents is like blaming the police for enforcing the law instead of blaming the criminals for breaking the law.
 
Paper Pregnancy, Country Ultrasounds, Faux Maternity Photos;  why do some adoptive parents feel the need to co-opt pregnancy terms to describe the adoption wait?
 
Do you feel LUCKY?  A conversation with a friend who seems to believe in the "Bad Seed" theory of adoption.

The Year in Review, Part I

Just for the heck of it, I decided to look over my posts for the last year, and share some of them again.  I'm including some posts that got a lot of comments, or that marked an important adoption event of the year (Artyom, anyone?), or that marked an important event in our lives.  I'll do the other half tomorrow.  Happy New Year!


January 2010

Friends and Sisters Forever, a sweet drawing by Zoe

When the Family Business is Child Trafficking, an interview with the traffickers at the heart of the Hunan, China scandal

World's Oldest Mother:  Age and Adoption, looking at how the law treats age of adoptive parents in adoption

"An abduction, not an adoption," about the ten missionaries arrested in Haiti for child trafficking for the purpose of adoption.

February 2010

"Mama, What's an Orphan?"  Maya wants to know.

Asian Americans, Adoption & Jim Crow, looking at how Jim Crow laws treated Asian Americans and transracial adoption.

Conversation Starters, about taking the opportunities that present themselves to talk casually about adoption with our kids.

March 2010

From the Economist:  Gendercide, looking at several articles in the Economist focusing on the "international war on girls," including China's one child policy.

Race:  Are We So Different?  about a museum exhibit on race that we visited over Spring Break.

April 2010

Another and Another and Another. . .  recapping two years worth of adoption disruptions

. . . and Another, introducing Artyom, the 8-year-old Russian boy put on a plane alone by his adoptive mother who no longer wished to parent him.

Talking About Artyom With My Kids, raising that difficult topic so they hear it from me first, not from someone on the playground.

Perpetual Foreigners & Arizona's Immigration Law, why international adoptive parents should care about Arizona's "Papers, Please" law.

May 2010
 
China Adoption, Birth Parent Searches, Corruption Conversations, summarizing some articles on these topics from Adoptive Families magazine.
 
Names in Adoption; what should be considered in giving a new name to an adopted child?
 
Adoption-Competent Therapists:  how to select a therapist when you think your adopted child might benefit.
 
Zoe's Poem:  Whole Heart & Maya's Poem: Feelings Come to Me; the girls write about adoption and feelings.
 
June 2010
 
Another "What Would You Do" Story;  what would you do if your child's birth parents found you and said their child had been kidnapped?
 
"Thinkin' of the things we used to do," sitting with my dad in hospice in his final days.
 
Adoption & Anger, looking particularly at anger directed at adoptive mom by child.
 
Ashes to Ashes; adding Grandpa to our Father's Day tradition of burning notes to the girls' birth fathers.
 
Is Illegal Adoption Human Trafficking?  The State Department says no.
 
Adopted -- Past or Present Tense? Is adoption a single event that happened in the past, or a lifelong event?  (Includes a video clip from the terrific Adoption Mosaic website).

Adoption News Links

Some interesting stories out there this week:

Adopted woman limited by law in search for biological family, about a woman's search for her birth mom made more difficult by closed records.

Stricter norms for domestic, international adoption, from the Times of India:

NEW DELHI: The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has moved to tighten adoption norms, proposing stringent monitoring of international and domestic adoptions, including a thorough scrutiny of the sourcing of each child placed for adoption.

Teen dad in uphill battle against adoption, highlighting problems faced by unwed fathers wanting to parent their children when the mothers want to place the children for adoption.

Blessed with a tiny gift: Johnson City couple rescue one child from famine and poverty in Ethiopia, about what you'd expect from that headline (blech!).

Jane Aronson, the 'orphan doctor' with a foundation that helps kids globally, a profile of Dr. Aronson.

Quake opens gate to adoptions, about Haitian adoptions post-earthquake.

Couple's battle with UK's tough adoption laws; the actual headline complains about UK not allowing transracial adoption (?), but the really amazing thing about the article are the over-the-top complaints about the homestudy process:

Next, the pair had to submit to a Home Study. A 50-page questionnaire filled in by social workers on visits to prospective parents, the form assesses a couple's suitability to adopt. [the HORROR!]

* * *

Francesca was instantly struck by how intrusive and surreal the questions were.

* * *

"The most intrusive questions were about our sex life. They wanted to know how good and regular our lovemaking was and whether I was happy with it.

* * *

As part of the Home Study, Francesca and Rick had to install child gates and raise the medicine cabinet for a baby they might never get. [SHOCKING!]

Local couple turns to billboard to help adoption process, seeking to reach potential birth mothers via billboard.

DNA Adoption Networking

Here's an interesting post about different types of internet DNA sites relevant to adoption:

With advances in computer technology and DNA science, it seemed likely that a way would be found for the far-flung children of China to find their birth families. That day seemed far off in the future. However that day is here now, and it has arrived 20 years before I expected it. A new kind of internet website provides the means for adopting parents of children adopted from China to discover if their child has a sibling, half-sibling, cousin or other relative adopted anywhere in the world. In addition, birth parents in China will be able to search for their biological child who has been adopted by a family living somewhere in the world. While China adoptions are the largest example of what is now possible, it applies to every adoption in the world today. I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that this is the most startling development in the field of adoption information in the past 25 years.


There are two new kinds of sites in particular that seem useful to the adoption community. They are interesting because both kinds are the first of a new genre of websites. The first are DNA social networking sites; the second are primarily gene-decoding sites.

1. DNA Adoption Networking


DNA Adoption Networking is a part of a new internet service the New York Times has called Zygotic Social Networking. These networking services permit users to build a social network around shared genetic material. Similar to Facebook, users are able to post photos, update their profiles, blog, and send messages to each other. More importantly, for adoptive families they facilitate searches for relatives and allow members to compare genetic makeup.

* * *
 
2. DNA Gene Decoding Sites


The second type of service now on the web that will impact adoptions is the ability to decode your child’s DNA. Adoptive families will find this site useful for many reasons. Your child’s DNA is decoded, providing you with much valuable information. The experience is simultaneously unsettling, illuminating and empowering.

* * *

A recent survey of adopting parents (by the China Adoptions DNA Project) found that while the adoption community is keenly interested in learning more about how a DNA database could benefit their children and families, the overwhelming majority of parents currently do not know enough about it or are not comfortable enough with what they do know to take the next step and join a database. I encourage adoptive families to spend time on the DNA websites listed at the end of this article.

Read the whole thing for more complete descriptions of the various services, an extensive list of "cautions" to think about, and links to lots of other resources.
 
Have you used DNA services to try to find birth relatives or more information about an adoptee's background?  Please share your experiences for the benefit of the rest of us!

Postwar adoptee spends final days helping orphans

Interesting article about a young North Korean adopted in 1961 by an American professor, now terminally ill with cancer, and trying to give back to North Korean orphans:

A photo of a 12-year-old North Korean boy on Sam Han's laptop computer pulls the dying man a half-century back in time, across continents to a place where he once wandered alone in search of his parents.


Separated from his family during the Korean War, Han was sheltered by strangers until an unlikely meeting set him on a remarkable journey to the United States. He was adopted by a Minnesota professor, immigrated under a special bill from Congress and years later became a successful business executive.

Han, a 65-year-old cancer patient, wants to give other overseas orphans a shot at making a life for themselves, but there are plenty of obstacles and so much to do.

And his time is running out.

The soft-spoken man with twinkling eyes sleeps little. He spends most days working to ship soy flour and rice meal packages to North Korean orphanages and help build a school for orphans in Tanzania. He spends nights on the phone with advocates overseas and punches out letters to lawmakers to push for a bill to let Americans adopt North Korean orphans.

 Recall, most adoptees from Korea are from SOUTH Korea.

Elton John is a Daddy

Remember this story, about Elton John wanting to adopt an HIV-positive Ukrainian toddler? He was deemed too old.

Well, he and partner David Furness have a new child via surrogacy, according to this CNN report:

Sir Elton John is a father. The boy was born on Christmas Day. And he shall be Levon. Or, more accurately, Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John, the singer's publicist said late Monday.

"We are overwhelmed with happiness and joy at this very special moment," John and his long-time partner, David Furnish, said in a statement. "Zachary is healthy and doing really well, and we are very proud and happy parents."

* * *

The baby was born in California via a surrogate, according to Fran Curtis, a representative for the couple. Curtis said she would not discuss the details of the surrogacy arrangements.

Adoptees should have their birth certificates

Glad to see an adoptive mother take this position in the Watertown Daily Times:

Last month we celebrated our daughter's 40th birthday with over 100 people, including her birth mother. Lola has known her birth mom and siblings, aunts, uncle, a grandfather, cousins, niece and nephews for several years now. Many of her natal family attended her wedding in 2001.


Lola has peace of mind knowing her relatives. She has a copy of her hospital record of live birth from the old Canton Hospital. What our daughter and thousands of New York adopted adults do not have is their original birth certificate (OBC). Ontario, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Alabama, Kansas and Alaska adoptees can access their OBCs. The latter two states never did seal the records.

As a grandmother, I don't have a lot of years left to fight for open records. How sweet it would be if more of the younger generation would take an active role in overturning archaic (since the 1930s) laws that deny a minority group their birthright.

Special Christmas Gifts

 My sister turned ordinary cardboard boxes into special treasure  boxes for Zoe and Maya, and they were thrilled!  Not only is each box in the girl's favorite color, but each is embellished with their Chinese Zodiac sign, sheep and dragon, AND the Chinese character for sheep and dragon!  I'm incredibly impressed with how much work Aunt Kim put into these boxes, and the girls are delighted with their new treasure chests.

And this picture is just because I think Zoe looks cute as a button in her new fleece hat and panda slippers, reading her new Kindle!

Nicole Kidman misses "adopted" kids

Nicole Kidman wishes adopted kids lived with her

Nicole Kidman on adopted kids
 
Nicole Kidman's heartbreak over her adopted children's decision to live with ex Tom Cruise

Nicole Kidman reveals heartbreak over adopted children

Nicole Kidman misses adopted kids
 
Nicole Kidman wants her adopted children to live with her
 
Nicole Kidman Wishes Adopted Kids Lived With Her
 
I could go on, the headlines are endless.  Can you see anything that would be lost if the word "adopted" was left out of the headlines? Out of the stories themselves?

He's Here!

He's here (at Mimi's house)!  (Courtesy of Capture the Magic)

Waiting for Santa

All I want for Christmas

From this site, the words of an adoptee:

Dear Santa Claus,

This is what I want from you:

I want to meet my mama, I want to see her face.
I want to know that in her heart, I have a special place.

Can you help me Santa, and bring me this one thing?
This gift will mean so much to me.

You see Santa, This is about the journey of my soul,
and this one present will help to make me whole.

author: P. Bohannon