Saturday, April 9, 2011

Fabulous Book on Adoption


Dear Readers,

I highly recommend that all members of the adoption triad---biological parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees---check out the revised and updated version of Adam Pertman's book Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming Our Families---and America.

Here are a few excerpts from the book that had me cheering, thinking, and considering:

"As a society and as individuals, we deluded ourselves for generations into thinking that the simplest way to make the uncertainty go away, and to ensure that we would never even have to consider competing for our children's love, was to make their birth parents disappear. Or, if that couldn't be accomplished, at least to turn them into lesser beings who couldn't possibly be the objects of anyone's desire." (p. 144)

"It's yet another example of the ubiquitously detrimental effect of money on adoption. Biological parents pray for perfect babies but love whomever they get; it's unhealthy for adoptive parents, nearly all of whom would have been thrilled to accept whatever children resulted from pregnancy, to conclude that they suddenly deserve perfection because they've plunked down their hard-earned dollars." (190)

"Ethically challenged adoption practitioners, child-hungry adoptive parents, and distraught pregnant women have always engaged in questionable activities, of course, but there have never been so many opportunities (and implicit invitations) for them to do so before [the Internet]." (p. 240)

"After Congress enacted a $5,000 tax credit for adoption sin 1997, some practitioners raised their charges about $5,000---and they've been escalating ever since as the size of the tax credit has risen. Subjecting children to the pressures of the free market almost guarantees they'll be treated as commodities." (p. 241)

"If America travels as aimlessly into the new procreative universe [such as IVF, designing babies, etc.] as they did the world of adoption, there's no telling where the unintended consequences will begin---or end." (p. 286)

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