Sabrina Murray

There was an article that my sister sent to me about the governments new plan raise fees for protection as well as stricter regulation rules about where the children are coming from. The article talks about the end of intercountry adoption possibly forever because of the regulations that this new group Intercountry Adoption Accreditation and Maintenance Entity. They are supposed to make intercountry adoption more ethical which means making sure the adoptee was not stolen or being brought to a family who wants to use the child for bad intentions. I was sad and upset while reading this outrageous article. Why is it outrageous? Because there is no way possible that intercountry can be 100% ethical. Who is going to be employed to track down every parent to make sure their intentions were for adoption? What will they do about China, where there are billions of parents that cannot support a child? This group does not have enough funding or resources to track down all these loose ends. Another point is that there are rare cases of an adoptee being stolen or used for ill purposes. This sudden outcry for more ethical purposes for adoption seems to me more like a cover up for preventing immigrants coming into the country.

Intercountry adoption helps build diverse communities that would not have existed without transnational adoptees. For all the other Chinese adopted friends that I had, we formed a community that had a mixed identity and heritage. This transnational adoption community is such a strong part of people’s identities that to take it away could hurt millions. As well as, this country would have no kinds of immigrants/ diversity then. As long as Trump gets his way and there are no immigrants aloud into this country. That is an extreme of course, but this is a serious issue. I think that lack of diversity and a destruction of a community will come out of no intercountry adoption.

Adoption is a huge part of many people’s lives because it has created a different way for single parents to have children. It has been going on for a long time and has helped millions of children without families. This will affect marriage patterns, and possible lead to the decline of number of babies produced. For example, in recent years the numbers for marriage and then birth rates have been going down for various reasons. Adoption is a key part that couples or single parents have used to have a child but without this resource then people could put off having a child or use other methods. However, no adoptions will heavily affect the numbers because it is such an important thing.

I think that adoption is such an important part of my life that it is unfathomable for me to imagine an end to it. I am from China, and it is crazy to think that these people want to try and track down every child to find their birth parents. Well if they do, will they tell that child where to find their birth parents or withhold that information? There are so many questions about this new program and so many issues that I have with this. I think it is unethical for them to propose the idea to make it even more difficult to adopt a child. Not everyone in this world have ill intentions or want to harm everyone.