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The Pros And Cons Of Adoption

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How many Americans’ lives are touched by adoption? Would it be believable to say just over one out of every two Americans has been exposed to the adoption process? Exactly how much of the American population is immediately involved with the adoption procedure? According to several reliable sources, 58% of Americans know someone who has been adopted, has adopted a child themselves, or has given a child up for adoption; that is over half of the population. For example, in 2001 there were 1.5 million adopted children in the United States – approximately 2.5% of the children in the country. The numbers are only continuing to grow. This is not an issue we can ignore any longer. Adoptees that search for their parents are met with many emotionally and tactically challenging obstacles. Many individuals often …show more content…

Rates became highest between the end of World War II and the mid 1970’s in a decade fittingly coined “the Baby Scoop Era.” During this era having a child out of wedlock was considered a major social taboo. The situation is different now; today the average cost of an adoption is approximately $10,000, but can range from $8,000 - $40,000 (Dusky A36), perhaps this suggests a shift in the basis of adoption now moving toward the best interest of the child, rather than the parent.
Adoptees have been attempting to seek out their birth parents for decades. Orphan Voyage, founded by Jean Paton in 1953, was the first support network for adoptees trying to gain access to their birth records. A similar group, Bastard Nation, founded in 1996, is a support group for adoptees that campaign for full access to birth records. In May 2010 then Governor of Illinois Pat Quinn signed a law that would give adoptees access to their birth certificates but permitted a provision that would let parents take measures to maintain their confidentiality (Adoption Timeline

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In Lorraine Dusky’s article, Adoption Laws Protect -- And Hurt, she tells the story of being a young mother: “When I surrendered my daughter to adoption nearly five decades ago, I was a fearful, teary young woman, desperate to keep my identity secret. I’d quit my job and gone into hiding - even my family didn’t know. I was one of the millions of women who relinquished their children during what has become known as the Baby Scoop Era - from the end of World War II to the mid 70’s when the shame of unwed pregnancy all but dictated that while, middle-class women like myself give up their babies.” This mother’s story shows that many fearful women give up their children for adoption. Once Dusky gave them up, she wanted her identity secret and wanted no one to know who she was.

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Officials knew that placing out was imperfect and did what they could to screen inappropriate families. Despite problems, the system provided the best chance for many children”. (Warren, 1998) The children who were not adopted in one state would travel on the train to the next state in hopes of being adopted by a loving family to care for them. In some cases, the match was made ahead of time, and the couple would present a number to the chaperones who would match the number to the child wearing the same number.

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When Belinda Behague was only 9 days old, her whole life quite literally changed. Because of this, when standing with her mother, father and brother, most don’t think much of it, however, some people may begin to notice that they look nothing alike. Out of the over 1,500 children adopted in the year 1975, Behague was one of them after being given to her loving parents in a closed adoption. Knowing about her adoption since a child was always something Behague considered a good thing. She believes that is the best way to do it, as she had friends in high school who were told at the age of 15 when their parents thought they were ready.

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As quality television programming has evolved throughout the years, so has its ability to create and develop female characters who challenge previous stereotypical notions of gender representation. This evolution is perhaps most notable in the depiction of Kim Wexler, portrayed by actress Rhea Seehorn, in AMC’s Breaking Bad (2008-2013) spin-off series, Better Call Saul (2015-2022). I would argue that, in order to effectively investigate the ground-breaking depiction of Kim’s character, a comparison should be drawn between herself and Skyler White from Breaking Bad. The discrepancies in how these characters are represented on screen and the resulting audience reception offers an interesting insight into the representation of gender in quality

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When confronting adults if they have ever considered adopting, the amount of money they have in their bank account should not dictate whether or not they decide to change any lives. Julie Gumm, author of “You Can Adopt Without Debt,” has adopted two of her children internationally. She was constantly being told by couples that they, too, would be interested in adoption — if only they could afford it (Swinarski, 2016, p.6). Children are the life of our future, they should not be advertised for money given to our government. Adoption should not be about how much money is currently available, all it should be based on is if the family considering adopting has the love and patience to tend to a child that has never felt love and has never been properly cared for in their entire life.

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How can adoptions increase “Many see adoption as a universal remedy for a host of problems from overpopulation to infertility” (psychologytoday.com). The process of adopting a child is very difficult. There are many problems with adoption such as cost, how long the process takes, and how many kids there are to adopt. To decrease the amount of time it takes to adopt, the process should decrease in price, become more efficient, and awareness should increase to make more homes for parent-less children. The adoption process should be made easier because it creates a better environment for a child to be raised in.

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There are 428,000 children in foster care in the united states and 135,000 children that are adopted each year in the United States. Out of these children, males outnumber the females. More than 60% of children in foster care spend 2-5 years before being adopted and some never get adopted. I’m connected to this topic because I know some kids that had to go through this. There are two different adoptions called open adoption which is where you get to see your birth parents rather closed adoption where you get no contact of your birth parents.

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The American Public welfare Association said the corresponding figure for the nation was about 40%(New York Times).Many of the children spend years in foster care waiting for new parents,and the

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Though there is already a lower amount of African-American children compared to Caucasian children, 56 percent Caucasian (Malm and Vandivere), African-American children are even less likely to be adopted. According to “Gender and Racial Biases: Evidence from Child Adoption”, it states that there is “a preference bias in favor of girls and against African-American children (Baccara et al 3)”. Not only are the odds of these children being adopted low due to the biases, but the cost to adopt an African-American child is also thousands of dollars cheaper compared a white child, which is around $8,000 to the data received in 2004 and 2009 (Baccara et al 3). This implies that there are probably more African-American children who are not being adopted in comparison to the Caucasian

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People think that adopting one child will not make a difference but it will. Individuals must focus on international adoption over domestic adoption because of the larger need, worse living conditions and the safety of the child from their birthparents. Americans became aware of the number of children without a parent or guardian in the beginning of the Cold War due to the famine and wars around the world. The general idea when it came

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Adoptive parents are usually couples who have been married for three years and are sometimes the same sex, or of the opposite sex. Why do people adopt? Most people, about 95% of adoptions happen because of infertility. How many children are adopted annually? Annually there are 1.6 million children adopted, and surprisingly there are only 98,000 that are less than one year

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597 Words | 3 Pages

Between 2004 and 2005 22,739 orphans were adopted from the top four popular countries China, Russia, Guatemala and South Korea however in 2004 there were an estimate of 45,000 adopted which dropped to about 25,000 in 2011. (“Adoption

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Transracial adoption (TRA) occurs when the parents and their adopted child are of different races. TRA has been a controversial issue as it is said to affect the child’s racial identity formation and development. Most TRA studies are done in the United States of America (USA) where there is an increasing trend of TRAs. The demand by Caucasian couples for babies is increasing but the babies available for adoption mainly come from African-American or Asian families. In the USA, from 1999 to 2013, the total number children adopted from China and South Korea is 91,002, comprising roughly 36% of the adoptions (Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. State Department, 2013).

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2110 Words | 9 Pages

For many years, children across the world have found families due to the adoption process. Today, in the Child Welfare System, approximately 400,000 plus children are waiting for a foster home, or waiting to be adopted. There are some children who are homeless due to the fact that there are too many children and not enough families. Many families don’t choose to adopt because they either don’t want children, are not financially stable, or they have their own children. Adoption has benefited many throughout the years, but there has recently been a debate brought up.

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1392 Words | 6 Pages

This heavy financial cost, extensive time span, and turmoil that it takes to go through adopting a child in the U.S is taking away from couples and individuals dreams of having a fair chance of being able to raise a family of their own some

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