Pardon my soap box, but help's needed

[jewels]

As a lot of you know, I'm mom to an intercountry adoptee (S. Korean). You've probably heard the reports that this process is becoming harder to do as countries are either shutting down to straighten out their bureaucracies or refining requirements and reducing the number of kids available by encouraging more local adoptions.

Vietnam is considering shutting down it's intercountry adoption program. 2 of our senators have drafted a letter to the PM of Vietnam to encourage them to continue allowing adoptions. More signers are needed, so this is a request to contact your senators and congressmen if they are not on the list at the bottom of this quote:


Joint Council Call to Action: Vietnam

For the thousands of Vietnamese children living outside of a family, intercountry adoption is no longer an option. Please help the Joint Council on International Children's Services change this by participating in their Call to Action.

Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Norm Coleman of Minnesota will be forwarding a letter to the Prime Minister of Vietnam, to encourage Vietnam's continued participation in negotiations on intercountry adoption. The letter will express Congressional support for the continuation of intercountry adoption.

Between Monday, January 5th and Wednesday, January 7th, you can support this important initiative through the following methods.

1. Contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators and ask them to sign
the letter to the Prime Minister of Vietnam regarding the future of intercountry
adoptions from Vietnam. Also, note that if they are interested in signing, they
should contact Sarada Peri from Senator Landrieu's office (Sarada_Peri@landrieu.senate.gov) by Wednesday, January 7th. For a list of
Senators and Congressman that have signed the letter as of the time of this
writing, please see below. You can find your Senators' phone numbers and e-mail addresses at www.senate.gov. You can write your Representatives' at https://writerep.house.gov/htbin/wrep_save .

2. Send a notice of support (and ensure that you receive updates on this initiative) via the Joint Council website.
• Click "Sign me up for Joint Council news."
• Under the communications preferences, select the drop down menu for "Newsflashes and Updates."
• Click "Sign me up."
• Fill in your information.
• Under the comment section, type "Letter to Vietnam Prime Minister." Joint Council will also be forwarding the names of individual who contact us to Senators Landrieu and Coleman.


The letter to the Prime Minister can only be successful with your help! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Joint Council staff via advocate@jcics.org.

Please note the following Senators have already signed the letter to the Prime Minister of Vietnam as of 12/17/2008:
Senator Landrieu
Senator Coleman
Senator Johnson
Senator Bill Nelson
Senator Oberstar
Senator Akaka
Senator Lincoln
Senator Roberts
Senator Lautenberg
Senator Murkowski
Senator Menendez
Senator Durbin
Senator Kerry
Senator Klobuchar

Please note the following Representatives have already signed the letter to the Prime Minister of Vietnam as of 12/17/2008:
Rep. Jim Oberstar
Rep. Jerry Costello
Rep. Scott Garrett
BTW: Joint Council is the accrediting body charged with overseeing international adoption practices (usually referred to as the Hague Convention). Last year Guatemala was one country that shut down to try to get in better Hague compliance, in the past Russia has done this as well. Since Adoptive Families didn't mention Hague in the letter quoted, I suspect Vietnam was already compliant with that.

[dru]

I know it's the fad to adopt foreign born but is there something wrong with in-country children? There are many in grave need of adoption.

[jewels]

It's hard to get picked by a birthmother if you want an infant. There are so many more couples looking for babies, than there are babies, and so few birthmothers chosing adoption plans over raising their own or aborting. Most inter-country adoptees have no future in their own countries, and those countries are usually overwhelmed with orphans. Culture may make them shunned from education and job oportunities as adults because they are illegitimate.

Most of the available kids in the US are older, in fostercare because of neglect or abuse, or are special needs, and require a bit more prepared parent than many 1st-timers feel they are capable. It's also easier to bond with a kid who's younger and more dependent on you: earning their trust at the food and diaper level is just easier. It gets harder the older they are.

[Wild Boar]

Different parents have different levels of comfort and capabilities.

When my wife and I decided we wanted to have children, we looked at in-country adoption, foreign adoption and fertility treatments. All of them cost about the same and had different positives and negetives.

For us, adoption in general was a process that simply felt intrusive, which is understandably necessary. But for us, we were simply not comfortable with the degree of intrusiveness so we opted for fertility.

If we had gone the adoption route, we most likely would have adopted a child from Guatemala or China.

We have nothing but the deepest respect for people who adopt any child and we are especially thankful for those who adopt special needs children. The latter requires a combination of generous spirit and great commitment resources.

[necron2.0]

My wife and I were looking into adoption too, before we became pregnant with our daughter. We wanted to do in-country adoption. After learning about our own country's adoption policies, it's no wonder there are so many children in foster care, and why it's so hard to adopt babies. Child "Protective" Services is entirely invasive. We learned they could show up at your house, at any time, for any reason, and conduct an inspection of your entire house. Then, generally the birth parents could sue at any time to get custody of the child back (sure they may have waived legal rights, but that wouldn't necessarily protect you from being sued). If you do manage to find a mother willing to put her child up for adoption, half the time you need to pay not only her medical expenses (and rightly so), but also her living expenses while she's pregnant (and there are no limits on what she can demand), and regardless you have absolutely no rights in the matter until she finalizes the adoption papers. Surogates can lead to even worse situations. A surogate has all the rights of refusing to relinquish custody as any birth mother, plus she can turn around and demand child support from the sperm donor (i.e. the hopeful dad), and the courts will (and repeatedly do) force the fathers to pay.

Bottom line, the laws in this country are completely backwards and messed up. The laws to protect children and families in this country are abusive and have been absolutely devastating to the health and well-being of children.

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