In Defense of Intercountry Adoption

Abstract

A dramatic increase in foreign adoptions in this country over the past ten years and an ever-growing demand have raised complex new policy issues on both national and local fronts. While adoptive applicants seem motivated by concern for the plight of orphaned or abandoned children in developing countries, child-welfare spokesmen have publicly warned of the risks involved and have challenged the advisability of removing children from their native lands. At the same time, local public and private agencies, confronted with a surge of home-study requests from applicants for foreign children, have been uncertain whether or how to respond. The customary focus on the child in adoption planning becomes inappropriate when this responsibility falls completely beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. agencies. In an effort to bring some order to a subject replete with philosophical and practical dilemmas, the author examines the most common criticisms of intercountry adoption, attempts to provide a broader factual basis of understanding, and offers some suggestions for a constructive approach by the social work profession.