January 27, 2014

Adoption News Round-up

Check out this week’s adoption news round-up!

A new bill spurred by the Baby Veronica case is going to be installed in Oklahoma, requiring both birth parents to go in front of a judge to sign away their parental rights. In the event that a biological parent can’t be found, a close family member can step in to sign away the rights. The bill also emphasizes that the child’s best interest is to be raised by a member of its family.

Evidence of three Indian children being forced into adoption in Australia has been revealed, as these children and potentially dozens more, have been brought into the country under framework between India and Australia that longer exists.

You will LOVE these hilarious adoption PSAs that spread the message: “You don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect parent.” According to the post, over 21,000 children have been adopted due to these ads, and that’s pretty incredible. Adoption is a very serious subject, but none of us would ever be able to get through parenting without a sense of humor!

Usually when we hear about adoption journeys they come from the female perspective. We so love this beautiful piece in the Telegraph written by a man who turned to adoption with his wife after a failed IVF cycle. It begins, “What makes men want to have children?”

Have you heard about embryo adoption? This is when couples have leftover frozen embryos after doing IVF treatments and instead of having them discarded, donate them to a center where they are then matched with recipients. The Snowflake Embryo adoption program is one of the most unique in the United States, in that it “allows the donor family to have a say in who receives their embryos – encouraging open communication between families after a donation results in a birth. Furthermore, recipients go through screening processes similar to those seen in adoption.”

“Common disorders, such as ADHD or conduct disorder, are being ‘grossly under-identified’ amongst adopted and fostered children, according to a new study by King’s College London. Instead, clinicians are over-identifying more complex ‘attachment disorders’, and as a result children are missing out on appropriate treatments.” The Medical Xpress examines this phenomenon and shares a few more details about the study. Was your child diagnosed with an attachment disorder? How were you led to that diagnosis?

The real Philomena is calling upon the Irish government to release their records to adopted individuals. According to the article, “There are more than 60,000 “adoption” files held by the HSE, private adoption agencies and church representatives spanning several decades. In many cases, the adoptions were not official and were carried out without the full knowledge of the biological mothers involved.”