An independent voice for ethical adoption
Position Papers
On Adopting From Utah and Other “Adoption Friendly” States
We have posted several news articles about birth father’s rights recently, and many of these cases involve adoptions in Utah. In some of these cases, birth mothers have deceived the fathers, signing adoption papers without notifying them that they had gone to Utah or that the child(ren) had been born. We have worked personally with [...]
Ethiopia: Become Part of the Solution
On March 4, 2011, the Ministry of Womens Affairs in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, reported that they would be sharply reducing the number of adoption cases they would review, from 50 cases a day at present to no more than 5 per day from March 10, 2011. MoWA indicated that they were taking these steps in [...]
International Adoption — Ethica’s Positions on Pending Legislation
Three bills were recently introduced in Congress relating to international adoption. Links to the bills and Ethica’s position on each of them are below. Ethica urges you to read these bills in their entirety. Do you share Ethica’s concerns about these bills? It’s important that Committee members hear YOUR voice. Contact info for each of [...]
Hearing Only One Voice: What does the future hold for Mercy and Malawi?
On June 13, 2009, the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeals overturned the lower court’s ruling and granted Madonna’s adoption of Chifundo “Mercy” James. Because of Madonna’s adoptions and her work with her charity “Raising Malawi,” the court found that she did not arrive in Malawi “by chance or as a mere sojourner” and, therefore, satisfied [...]
Deconstructing Bartholet on International Adoption
Ethica is pleased to announce the publication of, “Red Thread or Slender Reed: Deconstructing Professor Bartholet’s Mythology of International Adoption” by Johanna Oreskovic, J.D. and Trish Maskew, J.D., former Board member and founder of Ethica (respectively) in the upcoming Buffalo Human Rights Law Review. The piece is also available for download via this link. A snippet of the article is below:
“Like Bartholet, we are international adoptive parents, and like Bartholet, we place ourselves in the camp of those generally supportive of international adoption. Where we part company with her is in our characterization of the bigger picture. Bartholet’s position seems appealing because it relegates to the periphery of the analysis disturbing and problematic questions that should be at its core, specifically troubling practices like child-buying, coercion of vulnerable birth parents, weak regulatory structures, and profiteering. Our analysis breaks little new theoretical ground, and we do not propose programmatic solutions. Rather we identify and explore complexities that Bartholet for the most part ignores, but which are central to the viability and integrity of any international adoption process.”
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