An independent voice for ethical adoption
About Ethica
Ethica is a nonprofit corporation that seeks to be an impartial voice for ethical adoption practices worldwide, and provides education, assistance, and advocacy to the adoption and foster care communities.
In order to maintain an impartial voice:
- Ethica does not accept donations from adoption agencies or other entities that place children for adoption.
- Ethica’s staff, volunteers, and Board of Directors consists of persons who have an interest in ethical adoption practices, but are not currently affiliated with agencies or other entities that place children for adoption
- Ethica strives to develop organizational policy and recommendations based solely on the basic ethical principles underlying best practices in adoption and the best interests of children.
Some frequently asked questions about us:
Is Ethica pro-adoption?
Yes! All of us at Ethica are ardent supporters of ethical adoption. Done well, adoption is a blessing to the children of the world who need families, and to the families who want to parent more children. While Ethica speaks out about the difficulties and problems in the adoption community, we do so out of a desire to improve adoption, not eliminate it.
What is Your Goal?
Ethica strives to educate and inform the adoption community about global issues impacting adoptions. Without reform, adoption will cease to be an option for children in need of homes.
It is our belief that the term “ethical adoption services” pertains to more than just the actual act of adopting a child. For services to be truly ethical, they must involve family preservation efforts, birth family counseling and advocacy, adequate pre-adoption training for adoptive parents, ethical placement practices, post-adoption services which include disruption assistance, and the fulfillment of life-long responsibilities to adoptees and their families.
The People Behind Ethica
Rachel Schatz Wegner is the president of Ethica. She became a passionate proponent of adoption ethics and transparency after she and her husband chose to abandon their plan to adopt from Vietnam amidst reports of corruption in the fall of 2007. Rachel holds graduate degrees in public health (Harvard School of Public Health) and social work (from the University of Michigan) and has devoted her professional life to championing social justice in a variety of arenas, through advocacy roles, clinical work, and research efforts both in the U.S. and overseas. Currently, she is a consultant for several research projects on developmental delays in children, adolescents, and adults.
Usha Rengachary Smerdon is Vice President and a trial attorney with the federal government. Ms. Smerdon is the adoptive mother of two children from India who inspired her to become a passionate advocate for adoption reform and ethics. She began assisting Ethica in 2004 as a volunteer legal researcher and joined the Ethica Board of Directors in 2007. Ms. Smerdon regularly contributes to adoption education efforts, having written several articles for prospective and current adoptive parents on the topic of racism. She is a contributor to Fleas Biting (http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/), a blog that reports on international adoption practices in need of reform Ms. Smerdon considers herself an active learner in the field of adoption education, supporting the voices of adult adoptees and organizations concerned with sustaining ethical alternatives to international adoption.
Regina Reeves-Solomon is the Treasurer and a mother currently involved in custody proceedings for her son. Since 2004, Ms. Solomon has fought for the right to raise her child, having granted temporary custody to prospective adoptive parents who refused to honor her request for his return. In an unprecedented decision, a California judge ordered joint custody between Ms. Solomon and the son’s prospective adoptive parents, even though the court found that Ms. Solomon never consented to adoption and none of the adoption laws of California or Virginia were followed. Ms. Solomon moved to Johnson City, Tennessee in 2005, by order of the court, to have access to her child. She lives and works there as a high school math teacher and hopes someday to return home to California with her son. Regina’s real-life experiences, and her quiet determination to improve the application of existing laws to support parents and children, inform our daily work.
Carrie Kent is Secretary and Director of Research for Ethica, Inc. and is an adoptive mother of two children. Carrie is the former head of Research Services at Harvard University’s Widener Library, and is currently the Director of Research Support and Instruction at Connecticut College. She brings extensive writing and research skills to the Ethica board. She is active both locally and nationally in issues related to openness in adoption and transethnic placement of children. Carrie has been an owner and moderator of an adoption support service and has spoken at numerous adoption conferences over the years, including the Traverse City Open Adoption Conference, the LifeGivers Workshop, the Open Door Society and the Adoption Ethics and Accountability Conference.
Linh Song is the International Policy Director for Ethica. Ms. Song has a background in social work and nonprofit administration within the Vietnamese-American and adoption communities. Most recently, she founded and served as executive director of the Mam Non Organization, a group providing post-adoption support for families with adopted children. She holds a B.A. and M.S.W. from the University of Michigan, and is a Rockefeller Fellow at the Joiner Center for War and Social Consequences. Her career has been dedicated to social justice issues such as equal access to health care for underprivileged minorities at the University of Michigan School of Nursing Healthy Asian Americans Project, humanitarian work in foreign countries, research on the experiences of Vietnamese birthmothers, and the fostering of positive racial identities and cultural awareness within the transracial adoption community.
Nicki Bradley, a writer and mother of 4, became a passionate advocate for transparency and integrity in international adoption shortly after Vietnam reopened to adoptions in 2005. During the course of the adoption of her daughter, after seeing a clear need for transparency, accountability and advocacy for the true best interest of the child, she used her voice and written words to educate those who were open to it and advocate for those who can’t advocate for themselves. After completing her adoption, Nicki saw that there was a need for a public forum for honest dialogues between adoptive and prospective adoptive parents where experiences could be shared and information relayed that might help families navigate the challenging waters of international adoption. She created a collaborative blog (http://www.AdoptionIntegrity.com) to realize this vision. Since then, Nicki has also broadened the scope of her advocacy to include issues in domestic adoption including the need for open records, birth parent and adoptee rights. Nicki is a current member of our international policy team.
Tracy Desserich is the mother of three: a biological son, a daughter who was adopted from Vietnam, and a son with special needs from a domestic open adoption. Tracy became interested in adoption ethics in 2007 when the province in Vietnam from which she and her husband adopted their daughter was shut down to U.S. adoptions due to allegations of corruption. She is a contributing editor to Voices for Vietnam Adoption Integrity (www.AdoptionIntegrity.com). Tracy is an advocate for adoption reform and open adoption. She holds a B.A. from Indiana University and a M.S. from Indiana Wesleyan University. She is also certified in nonprofit management. She is Director of Development for a nonprofit.
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