April 07, 2014

Adoption News Round-up!

Here’s a look at what’s going on in the adoption world this week:

This birth mother tells her amazing, heartfelt story about placing her child with a same-sex couple, and the open adoption that changed her life. We hope all adoptions bring this much joy and happiness!

It’s official! After a lot of bad press, and many adoptions gone terribly wrong, the governor of Utah has finally signed a new law that will put some tighter rules on adoption. Responsible fathers will not have the right to challenge adoptions that aren’t consensual, a right that hasn’t been granted to many who’ve gone before. “Single mothers will no longer be able to travel to Utah to put kids up for adoption without first notifying their children’s fathers now that state legislators have changed a law that critics said cleared a path for kidnapping and fraud.”

The High Court in the UK has been asked to change the identities of two adopted children to help protect them from abusive parents. The children’s birth parents are currently in prison, and the courts are being asked to give them new first and last names to make it more difficult for their parents to try and establish contact once they are released. There is some controversy because of the psychological effect it could have on the children, who are two and three years old and will inevitably be confused, and otherwise affected, by such a change. What do you think? Is changing a child’s identity to make them less accessible to an abuser something we should be able to do?

Utah isn’t the only place getting tighter adoption rules…new laws in Haiti will help to ensure that adopted children weren’t trafficked, under a new pact that says, “prospective parents will be able to adopt only from adoption agencies certified by the Haitian government’s social welfare agency. Prospective parents, meanwhile, are required to show they are capable of raising children born in other countries.” Although details still have to be finalized, these measures are being put in to place to help ensure that all children placed for adoption are true orphans.

This American couple did an incredible thing and smuggled their new daughter out of Crimea before it united with Russia, and thus, the Russian adoption ban. Miracle after miracle came through in what was a terrifying journey back to the States. We’re so happy to see the family unscathed and together!