Book Review: Hole in my Heart by Lorraine Dusky

For many decades we have been working toward a fundamental re-thinking of adoption.  The necessity of re-thinking adoption is based on the flaws of our cultural, legal and historical approaches to adoption.  We are culturally enveloped by an adoption savior mythology that often begins with the orphan and skips the fundamental facts of loss and disconnection involved in adoption---as though “orphans” were brought to adoptive parents by the proverbial stork.   We still are under a legal approach to adoption that treats the adoptee “as if” she or he had been born to the adoptive parents, with officially faked birth certificates---and unfortunately still in most states original records closed even to the adult adoptee.   We have the horrific heritage of the baby scoop era, when so many unmarried mothers were forced or pressured into giving up their children for adoption---a phenomenon increasingly acknowledged in many nations around the world.   

Lorraine Dusky’s newly published book is in part a mother’s gut-wrenching record of one of those baby-scoop era adoptions.  Dusky goes further, however, and takes the story into the intergenerational realm of reunion with her daughter, the complex relations that follow with her adult daughter and adoptive family, and what happens as her daughter also has a child.   I don’t want to give away any of the story, except to say that the part of the book dealing with post-reunion relationships is critically important.   This is not a book about “happily ever after” (although Lorraine herself is definitely a survivor).   This is a book in which everyone bears scars and seeks, not always with success, to overcome them.     The story quite frankly is sometimes very hard to read simply because it is so painful, and I admire Dusky’s courage in telling it.

Hole in my heart is appropriately subtitled as “a memoir and report from the fault lines of adoption.”  Indeed, adoption viewpoints have often been divided and stereotyped by triad identification.   The older adoption savior mythology has often been identified with adoptive parents.   First parents and adult adoptees often have been politically aligned in challenging that culturally dominant narrative.    Dusky’s memoir suggests, however, that equally important is the fault line between adoptees and first parents---and especially between adoptees and their mothers.   Most of us already know that reunions and the relationships that follow can be difficult.   Although Dusky of course is only giving us one particular story, her compelling narrative can give us increased insight into why those relationships are so difficult.   If we are going to re-vision adoption correctly, we badly need this kind of brutally honest narrative.

I was honored to be asked by Lorraine to write an endorsement for her book, and was pleased to do so.  Of course the point of the endorsement was to do so as an adoptive parent, to make it clear that this is not just a book for first parents and adoptees.    Indeed, as adoptive parents, Desiree and I helped arrange a very complicated reunion between our daughters and their mother and family in India.  While I personally believe in all-manner of openness in adoption—open records, open adoption, open communication among all triad members---I had already learned the hard way that there can be no “politically correct” set of expectations around post-reunion relationships.  They are complex and difficult because the separations and traumas that preceded them run so deep.   They are raw because they re-open scars, which does not make them any less important and necessary, but sometimes makes them painful even when they are healing.   Dusky’s book confirms what I have seen so often elsewhere---that the adoptee journey of discovery and identity operates according to rhythms that often clash with the desires and expectations of first parents, and that at least some adoptees have difficulty getting past a core anger against their mothers for not being there with them during their childhoods, no matter how good the explanations.       

Read Dusky’s book.   It is one of the antidotes to the simplistic adoption narratives we have been fed for too long.   But don’t stop there.   We need more stories like this.  Not everyone can and should tell their stories to the world, but we can at least tell them to one another.   Dusky gives us courage and honesty, which is a great gift and example.

David Smolin

THE INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION DEBATE IS OVER

Despite what some may believe, the intercountry adoption debate is effectively over.

For years, the intercountry adoption (ICA) debate has involved a continuum involving three positions.  One side, whom I will label the ICA cheerleaders, sees ICA as the best intervention for millions of children caught in destructive, dead-end situations with no adequate domestic solutions.  Under the banner of “every child has a right to a family,” this position prioritizes ICA as often the only means of providing children living outside of parental care with a permanent family.  The hope was there would routinely be hundreds of thousands of intercountry adoptions annually, such that there would no longer be “orphans” wasting away in orphanages or on the streets.  

On the other side are the ICA opponents, who oppose any systemic practice of ICA as neo-colonialist exploitation which takes children from poor, usually non-white, vulnerable families and communities in developing and transition economies, and sends them to generally white, privileged families in rich nations.    This perspectives emphasizes the child’s loss of family, community, culture, language, and nation.    Some ICA opponents interpret the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as opposed to any systemic ICA practice, and as incompatible with the Hague Adoption Convention.    

In the center, between the ICA cheerleaders and the ICA opponents, are a set of international standards harmonizing the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Hague Adoption Convention, and Alternative Care Guidelines.  Under these harmonized and developing international standards, ICA may be an appropriate practice in the absence of available and appropriate domestic solutions for children bereft of parental care.   The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), International Social Services (ISS), UNICEF, States (nations), and many NGOs have developed these international standards in order to reform international adoption into a safe system free of systemic illicit practices and compatible with human and children’s rights.    Within these standards, poverty is not an adequate reason for ICA, and priority should be given to domestic solutions such as family preservation and re-unification and appropriate domestic solutions.  Within the context of these international standards there is still disagreement about which domestic solutions are adequate, and how to balance building up domestic child welfare capacities with ICA practice and capacity. 

               

The debate over these contrasting views of ICA is over because of changing contexts and events, rather than due to any success in one side persuading the others.  While many on all sides remain just as committed to the rightness of their viewpoints, these disagreements now have little relevance for the present or immediate future of ICA.    The most striking and important set of events is the sharp decline in ICA globally over the last decade.   ICA globally has declined by almost two-thirds over the last decade, from a high of about 45,000 annually to about 16,000 annually.  ICA to the United States has declined by more than 70% over a similar period, from a high of about 23,000 in 2004, to about 6,400 in FY 2014.  [For global ICA statistics, the best source is Professor Peter Selman; U.S. statistics are available online from the U.S. Department of State.]  

Given such small and declining numbers, it has become increasingly difficult to see ICA as either a global solution or global threat for the millions of vulnerable children and families around the world.   Instead, ICA is increasingly an issue at the margins for those concerned with children globally, as a solution for a small number of primarily “special needs” children, defined generally as older children, children with various kinds of serious disabilities, and sibling groups.   Even as to those categories of special needs children lacking parental care, ICA is practiced only as to a very small percentage, and in significant number only in a small number of nations. 

  

 Another key set of events has been the recurrent cycle of abuse, in which a nation will rise quickly in numbers as a source of children for ICA, only to be temporarily or permanently closed due to reports and scandals of illicit practices.   Some proponents of ICA complain that the reports of illicit practices are sensationalized and exaggerated, while others (such as myself) argue that the illicit practices have often been systemic.   Either way, the damage to ICA’s reputation due to such reports has been substantial, with impacted States closing temporarily or permanently, and other States reluctant to open to ICA due to concerns over illicit practices.    

The debate is over because, at least for now, very few on any side of the debate actually believe that the numbers will rise substantially anytime in the foreseeable future.   Instead, the infrastructure of agencies and organizations built around large-scale ICA are being dismantled.   In the United States, perhaps as many as four hundred international adoption agencies have closed.   One of the most symbolic signs of this decline in ICA numbers and agencies has been the announcement that the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) was to close as of June 30^th, 2015.   At its most influential, JCICS could unapologetically be the primary voice and trade organizations for ICA agencies in the United States.   Over the last years of decline, JCICS tried to re-invent itself as representing international children’s services generally, rather than ICA in particular.   Its closure represents the difficulties of entities built around ICA becoming credible spokespersons and experts for children’s services beyond ICA.  

To be clear, although I have been repeatedly characterized by some as an opponent of ICA, I represent the middle position of international standards.   The attempts by some ICA cheerleaders to marginalize me, and their apparent frustration over the frequent use and acceptance of my own work internationally, is a small sign of the failed strategy and vision of the U.S. based ICA cheerleaders.   In essence, many ICA cheerleaders lumped proponents of international standards together with ICA opponents.   In essence, ICA cheerleaders tried to promote ICA while treating many of the most important actors and stakeholders involved in ICA as their enemies. 

Indeed, the ICA movement in the last decade increasingly saw devils, obstacles, and opponents everywhere:  in UNICEF, HCCH, the Hague Adoption Convention, human rights organizations, the U.S. State Department, most States of Origin, adoptee and first parent organizations, and academics such as myself.    Such a strategy, while it created some short term gains, was destined to fail, for it sought to marginalize and sidestep groups and persons essential to any successful ICA system.    ICA as a lawful system requires international actors such as States, international organizations and NGOs, for you literally cannot do lawful ICA without both States of Origin and Receiving States acting, and organizations like UNICEF, HCCH, ISS, and significant NGOs and human rights actors are a part of the fabric, context, and connections of international society.   ICA cannot function effectively by marginalizing the adoptees who are its purported beneficiaries.   ICA could never be successful by trying to slay messengers (such as myself) who have served in effect as whistle-blowers about illicit practices, for without proper intelligence about what was going wrong on the ground the system becomes incapable of effective self-correction.  

Many ICA cheerleaders treated virtually anyone who clouded the simplistic savior narrative of ICA as an opponent and subject to marginalization, shaming, and silencing, with the result that proponents lost touch with reality and with the capacity to create a sustainable ICA system.  Instead, the ICA movement within the USA created an echo-chamber of powerful actors, including some within the government and legislature, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, JCICS, ICA agencies, the National Council for Adoption (NCFA), the Center for Adoption Policy, the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO), and Together for Adoption.   These individuals and groups constantly consulted with one another but engaged with most others in the adoption communities as though they were outsiders or enemies.   Perhaps the underlying glue that bound these groups together, at least in the United States, was an implicit alliance between adoption agencies, prospective adoptive parents (PAPs), and adoptive parents (APs).   While of course some agencies and some adoptive parents (such as myself) dissented, the ICA cheerleading movement was largely built upon the synergy and worldview generated by agencies, PAPS, and APs.  Innumerable e-mail and social media groups dominated by agencies, PAPs, and APs both promulgated the ICA cheerleading orthodoxy, and silenced and shamed dissenters.   

Certainly some within these groups in the last years attempted to open up broader dialogues---I credit particularly Tom DiFilipo of JCICS and Jedd Medefind of CAFO, among others.  Nonetheless, the ICA cheerleaders as a movement never sufficiently differentiated between the broad middle that saw ICA through the lens of the developing international standards, and those who were ideologically opposed to any systemic practice of ICA.   Thus, the ICA cheerleaders never succeeded in treating the critical middle as truly equal partners, nor the international system as an indispensable means for reforming and sustaining ICA practice.    More deeply, the ICA movement never was willing to look at the evidence sufficiently to question its presupposition that illicit practices were a mostly insignificant distraction from the noble purpose of rescuing children.   The close connections between ICA cheerleaders and agencies made their movement in effect a lobbying arm of the agencies.   In that context, the aversion of most agencies to strict rules on finances and accountability became in effect the position of ICA cheerleaders, with disastrous consequences for ICA practice in many vulnerable nations such as Guatemala, Nepal, Ethiopia, DRC (Congo), and Uganda.   

Perhaps the U.S. adoption movement believed it had the power to enforce its will on the world, in defiance of the basic structures of international relations and law.  If so, that hubris has been proven false.   One of the final nails in that coffin was the failure of the proposed Children in Families First (CHIFF) legislation, along with the failure of Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, its most important advocate, to win re-election in 2014.   CHIFF seemed to be an attempt to both inject new federal money into ICA agencies in the U.S. in order to sustain their survival, and to force other nations to classify millions of children as eligible for ICA in defiance of international standards for adoptability.  The desperate hope that the U.S. could force open international access to children around the world through mere domestic legislation, in defiance of developments in international law and society, shows the mindset of the movement as bent to practice ICA despite, rather than through, the structures of international law and governance. 

Indeed, the international context for ICA makes it increasingly unlikely that the U.S. would or could attempt to impose its will in the manner envisioned by CHIFF.   For me, this was made even clearer by the recent Special Commission on the Practical Operation of the Hague Adoption Convention, held in June of this year.   The event is facilitated approximately every five years by HCCH, and is a diplomatic meeting of governments, with some representation of international organizations.  There were approximately seventy nations represented in 2015.   I have been honored in the last two Special Commissions (2015 and 2010) to participate as an Independent Expert/Observer, and each time was honored with the opportunity to make a presentation on illicit practices.   Having observed these last two Special Commissions, I was impressed by the growing self-confidence of the States of Origin.  Increasingly, they seem to be cooperating among themselves, particularly in regional blocks, in helping one another to implement improved practices according to both international standards and their own national and regional cultures and perspectives.  Increasingly, States of Origin seem willing to assert themselves and their own perspectives and concerns, rather than deferring to Receiving States or others.   While the United States is certainly a very important actor which advocates its positions eloquently and effectively, the United States is certainly not in a position to dictate, even if that were its policy (which, I presume, it is not).  The United States instead effectively works cooperatively with other governments and with the Permanent Bureau of HCCH. HCCH itself carefully facilitates discussions among the Receiving States and States of Origin, seeking consensus.  

The dream of CHIFF, that a single act of legislation by the United States Congress could force the United States government to somehow dictate definitions and practices regarding which children are deemed eligible for ICA globally, contrary to current international standards, makes no sense within this global context of international law and cooperation.   Of course such an attempt would validate the views of those who see in ICA a neo-colonialist project, and hence radically increase opposition to ICA globally.   The fact that so many ICA cheerleaders, as recently as last year, were committed to CHIFF, shows the failure of the movement to comprehend the global situation of ICA, and the proper place of U.S.-based adoption proponents within that situation.

So the ICA debate is over, not because one side has persuaded another, but because of how events in the world have overtaken the debate.   The ICA cheerleaders have failed by their own criteria---the numbers of international adoptions---and have no credible plan to reverse that failure.  Instead, many of the organizations and people who were central to the movement have dissolved, left, or are re-structuring/repurposing.   Of course the failure of one side does not mean that the other sides have won.  In this instance, it means rather that the situation has been profoundly altered, and the terms of future debate and development altered. 

The question is, what comes next?   The end of the debate is not the end for the millions of people personally impacted by ICA, for adoption changes lives forever.   The end of the debate is not the end for those who have devoted years, or decades, to ICA, regardless of their perspective on it.  The end of the debate is not the end for ICA practice, which continues, even if at much reduced numbers.  The end of the debate is not the end for the countries still in the grip of recent and current crises over illicit practices, such as Ethiopia, DRC, and Uganda.  The end of the debate is not the end for efforts to assist the millions of vulnerable children and families around the world.   Hence, what comes next will be the subject of a future post.     

David M. Smolin

Keren Riley's Interview of David Smolin About the Evangelical Christian Adoption Movement

On May 1, 2015 David Smolin (law professor with expertise in child laundering issues in international adoption; independent expert for the Hague Convention; and blogger here on Fleasbiting) participated in a session at the annual Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) Summit.

That session was a dialogue between Jedd Medicind, President of CAFO, spotlighted as an apologist for the evangelical Christian Adoption movement, and David, introduced as a critic of the evangelical Christian Adoption movement.

In the interview linked to below, Keren Riley of Reunite Uganda asks David a series of questions concerning the Evangelical Christian Adoption Movement, the session in which he participated with Jedd Medefind, CAFO (the Christian Alliance for Orphans), and the broader current situation concerning international adoption.

Keren Riley's interview  of David appears on her blog Rileys in Uganda.

You can go to the whole interview now, by going to Rileys in Uganda .

The Corrupting Influence of the United States on a Vulnerable Intercountry Adoption System: A Guide for Stakeholders, Hague and Non-Hague Nations, NGOs, and Concerned Parties

The above-titled draft article by one of our bloggers, David Smolin, is posted and available for free download on his bepress site linked below.  

The article analyzes the corrupting influence of the United States on the development and present workings of the intercountry adoption system.  A context for this corrupting influence is provided through a careful analysis of the theoretical and practical vulnerabilities of the intercountry adoption system.  The distinctive approaches of the United States to social work, adoption, human rights, children's rights, constitutional law and humanitarian intervention also provides further context.

The article is designed to be practical in providing proposals for those interested in reforming the United States' approach to intercountry adoption and related matters.   The article also seeks to provide relevant information for governments, NGOs, and others in nations who interact with or consider interacting with the United States on these issues.While the article provides a clearly defended point of view, it seeks to also take account of diverse viewpoints, both within and outside of the United States.

The article goes beyond the author's prior analyses of the distinctive problems of child laundering/child trafficking in intercountry adoption, to provide a rigorous analysis of both the global effort to construct a viable, safe, reliable and ethical intercountry adoption system, and the roles of the United States in relationship to that effort.

This is a draft version in advance of forthcoming publication in the Journal of Law and Families Studies and the Utah Law Review, so there will be some errors.   The article is also very long!   Comments are welcome below in this blog's comments section.

The Corrupting Influence of the United States on a Vulnerable 

Intercountry Adoption System:  

A Guide for Stakeholders, Hague and Non-Hague Nations, NGOs, and Concerned Parties 

The Liberal Roots of the Modern Adoption Movement

Two of our Fleasbiting bloggers--David and Desiree Smolin--were asked to write one of the three "cover stories" for the second issue of a new online magazine, "Gazillion Voices."  (We'll soon be posting more about Gazillion Voices--an effort we enthusiastically support--in another blog post)

Our finished liberalism and adoption piece is titled, "The Liberal Roots of the Modern Adoption Movement."

Here are the first few paragraphs.  (To read the rest of the essay, please click on the link at the end.  It will take you to Gazillion Voices.)

Please leave any comments you might have either here or at the end of the article in Gazillion Voices.

---

THE LIBERAL ROOTS OF THE MODERN ADOPTION MOVEMENT

by David Smolin and Desiree Smolin

INTRODUCTION

            Gazillion Voices provided us with the assignment of writing something about liberalism and adoption. We accepted the assignment largely because we agree with the purposes of Gazillion Voices to provide a platform for “adoptees and their allies” and to provide topics and content that will “reframe and reshape the conversation about adoption.” We like to think that we are among the allies! Nonetheless, the topic is awkward for us for several reasons. First, as long-term critics of adoption systems, we have tried to appeal to legal rules or broadly shared values, rather than to a narrow set of values that appeal primarily only to a specific group. The primary exception, our work on the evangelical Christian adoption movement, involves us as evangelicals critiquing evangelicals, using the religious beliefs we share with that group as a common basis for communication. Second, while we would characterize ourselves as political moderates, it would be more accurate to say that most of our adult lives have been spent in difficult spaces between political and other contesting groups. Unfortunately, in addressing the subject of liberalism and adoption we are stepping into new territory likely to make even more people unhappy with us. 

            Adoptees, of course, like all people,  run the spectrum of political, cultural, and religious perspectives. Nonetheless, much activist adoptee discourse critiquing various aspects of adoption has employed popular or scholarly language that is progressive, liberal, or “left” in rhetoric, reference, and tone. Added to this tendency has been the new wave of largely progressive critique of the recent evangelical Christian adoption movement. Further, activists addressing the long history and current circumstance of Korean adoptions are often reacting against elements of American and Korean culture and practice that are variously religious, conservative, and traditionalist. All of this can give  the impression that disputes over adoption, or specific aspects like transracial or intercountry adoption, are primarily left-right disputes.

            We argue, to the contrary, that the modern adoption movement has become embedded in all major streams of American culture. (In referring to the “modern adoption movement,” we are focusing on the popularization and expansion of adoption in the post-World War II era, including both intercountry adoption and domestic adoption.) Indeed, liberal and progressive thought is at the center of the modern adoption movement. Thus, any attempt to “reframe and reshape the conversation about adoption,” as Gazillion Voices and many others seek to do, must address the liberal roots of the modern adoption movement. We further challenge activist “adoptees and allies” who identify themselves as progressive, liberal, or left politically, to take the lead in critiquing the role of their own self-identified cultural/political/religious paradigms in the modern adoption movement. Adoption discourse that merely reinforces religious, political, or cultural identities and prejudices will become swallowed up in the broader fragmentation of cultural and religious values, and will do little to actually reform adoption.  

CONTEXTS

Politics, religion, and culture have become embedded in intertwined identifies defined in opposition to stereotyped images of enemy others. One such polarization is between secular liberals and evangelical Christians, who  so often  vilify one another. Yet, as to adoption, secular liberals and evangelical Christians fundamentally agree and, indeed, have agreed for years. This agreement is sometimes hidden by differences in vocabulary and justifications, with each side using rhetoric that the other may sometimes find repugnant. The agreement across this polarized divide is a part of a broader American consensus on adoption, from which each group draws. Americans share a common understanding of what adoption is, a common belief in the “facts” of adoption, a common view of themselves and the “other” in relation to adoption, and a common undifferentiated belief in adoption as the best solution to many child welfare problems. This American understanding reflects a naive blindness to the roles of self-interest in adoption, a disinterest in the power/privilege/gender inequality/class/wealth-differentials that drive and have always driven adoption, as we understand it, and a common ignorance of the history of the institution of adoption.

Click here to continue reading this essay on Gazillion Voices.

The "Baby Veronica" Case and the Abuse of Adoption

Amidst the conflicting claims regarding the actions and character of the parties contending for custody of almost-four year old Veronica, it is the undisputed facts that seem most significant.  Dusten Brown is Veronica’s father.  Dusten Brown has fought for Veronica from the time, when she was four months old, that he became aware that Veronica’s mother wanted to place her for adoption.  (There is much dispute about what happened during the pregnancy and in those first four months, but no substantive dispute about what happened since then.)   The adoptive parents had the opportunity to let go then, at four months, with comparatively little trauma to Veronica, but instead fought in court against Dusten, delaying  the handover of Vernonica to her father until she was 27 months old.   It is further undisputed that Dusten, along with his parents and wife, form a loving and successful family environment for Veronica, and that she has thrived with them for the last 19 months.

Whatever the law may say, ethically the result is clear:  Veronica should remain with her family.   This is true not only because it would be traumatic for her to be moved, again, although that is certainly relevant.  More fundamentally, Veronica should remain with her father and family because adoption should never be used to take children away from a loving family.

Remember when adoption was supposed to about providing families for “orphan” children, or for children from abuse or neglect so severe that, after reasonable efforts to rehabilitate and preserve the family, there was no way to make the family a reasonably safe place?     Unfortunately, adoption all too often has become about the desire of adoptive parents to parent, rather than the needs of a child for a home.   There is nothing wrong with wanting to parent a child, but everything wrong with taking someone else’s child to do so.  

The Veronica case is distinctive because of the issues surrounding tribal citizenship and the Indian Child Welfare Act, but the basic scenario of adoptive families fighting to wrest or retain children from original family members is all too commonplace.   It is very unfortunate that the law too often is structured to side with adoptive parents in these settings.   However, it is even more unfortunate that adoptive parents who have a child for a few days, weeks, or months before becoming aware that the original mother or father want the child, feel justified in fighting to keep what they deem as “their” child. 

In this case, it is particularly unjust that the adoptive couple have sought, and the South Carolina courts granted, an order taking Veronica from her father and family, without even a best interests hearing.   It is ironic that the adoptive parents make the argument that the transfer should be done quickly for Veronica’s sake, when in terms of Veronica’s best interests there is no indication that the transfer should take place at all.   Indeed, if the adoptive couple had wanted to minimize Veronica’s trauma they would have returned the child to her father as soon as he sought it, when she was four months old.   This case has become a revealing illustration of the determination of adoptive parents to obtain, take, and keep children, regardless of whether those children indeed have a parent and family who love and want them. 

Others have noted a certain religious backdrop to this case, related primarily to organizations supporting the adoptive parents or involved in the adoption who claim a religious purpose or affiliation---specifically Christian.    Without claiming to evaluate those ties, my belief as a Christian is that, regardless of what the courts decide as a matter of legal right, the adoptive parents should allow Veronica to remain with her father and family.   Perhaps they can work out some access to Veronica, perhaps not:  but they should honor Veronica’s family relationships.  Indeed, one wonders whether the determination to wrest Veronica from her father could be viewed as a kind of coveting of another’s child, and if successful as a kind of child stealing:   violations of the 8^th and 10^th commandments. 

The Christian community—and especially the Christian adoption movement-- should see the Veronica case as an opportunity to establish several fundamental principles, without which adoption becomes exploitation and sin.   Adoption should not be used as a means to take children from their original family when that family loves and wants them, and is able to provide a positive and safe environment for them.   In regard to the tribal aspects of the case, it needs to be made clear that the Christian community has no desire to use the power of the state or law to wrest children away from their original communities for the sake of “Christianizing” them or separating them from their birth cultures, as was done so often in the past.   This case is an opportunity for the Christian adoption movement to clearly repudiate the shameful history of the use of adoption and other means to accomplish a kind of cultural genocide.   This case is also an opportunity to make clear that there is a strong priority for children to be raised, whenever possible, by their biological parents, and that therefore biological parents have priority over prospective adoptive parents.   Once these priorities are established, then adoption can be reserved for those instances when it is truly needed for the benefit of children.

In regard to the fate of Veronica herself, of course, I lack access to all of the facts.  I know nothing except what is in the public record.    I can only hope and pray that the courts and all of the parties will ultimately be guided to a just result that will truly be in Veronica’s best interests.   It has been immensely saddening, however, to see how willing so much of the media has been to ratify as normal the sense of entitlement to Veronica that the adoptive parents are expressing, and so unwilling to consider the claims of a father who has for so long sought nothing more than to raise his own daughter.   There is something amiss in our cultural concept of adoption that is begging to be corrected.

David Smolin

Journal of Christian Legal Thought Issue on Adoption: Hopes for a Mature Dialogue

The Journal of Christian Legal Thought, a publication of the national Christian Legal Society and Regent University School of Law, allowed me to help put together an issue on adoption.  Thanks to Mike Schutt, the editor, for his courage in publishing what may be seen as a controversial issue, and for his trust in giving me flexibility in recruiting a diverse group of authors. 

The adoption issue of the Journal of Christian Legal Thought is available online in e-mag format; click on the following link:   Journal of Christian Legal Thought, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 2012.    

(The link above first takes you to the abstracts of the articles as viewed in the print version; to read the full article click the link at the end of the abstract---for those with a longer version.)

The issue contains three articles on the theological controversy (myself, with responses by Jedd Medefind, head of the Christian Alliance for Orphans, and Dan Cruver, editor/author of Reclaiming Adoption); two adult adoptee voices (Mark Diebel and JaeRan Kim), a personal story by a first mother who lost her child recently and writes here under the pseudonym of Clara Daniels; and an historical article by E. Wayne Carp, a leading historian of adoption, on Jean Patton, a Christian, adoptee, and early critic of the closed records system. 

One message I would hope this issue sends to the Christian world is that adoption is controversial, and for good reasons.  The Christian adoption movement has naively recapitulated the rhetoric of orphan babies and children being rescued by unrelated Christian adoptive parents, putting a false veneer of Biblical rhetoric over it.  (I say false veneer because the Bible itself does not tell any such story.)   Instead, any fair narrative about adoption must begin with the conception and birth of a child to a particular mother, father, family, and community; once this true beginning is acknowledged, it becomes clear enough why adoption is controversial.   Immediately the questions emerge:  was a separation between the child and her family really necessary?   What is the relationship of the adoptee to their original family (not just parents, but also siblings, extended family, grandparents, etc.) ?  What is the relationship of the original family to the adoptive family?  

Once a legitimate controversy is acknowledged, what is the way forward?

The answer is:  Dialogue, dialogue, and more dialogue.  

From that perspective, I hope this issue of the Journal of Christian Legal Thought furthers this necessary process of dialogue. But it is only a beginning.   I hope that we can encounter one another with respect as fellow human beings made in the image of God---and for those of you who share my Christian faith, as brothers and sisters in Christ.

I know some of you may find my rhetoric strong at times.   But please consider:  every day of my life I live, within my own family, the long term impact of deeply exploitative and sinful practices conducted in the name of adoption.   Nearly every day of my life I encounter those same impacts in the lives of many others, through personal communications, reviewing new reports of abusive practices, and continued research.   Then, when I enter the rhetorical world of the Christian adoption movement I encounter what appear to me to be a fantasy-land of lies and misleading inducements which continue to harm many.   I recognize that most involved are well-intentioned and worthy of respect---but the actions and rhetoric remain deeply hurtful.  So it my role to seek to burst the bubble of the adoption fantasy. 

So do not confuse strong words with disrespect.

I am quite good at listening---indeed, I’ve been listening to pro-adoption rhetoric for longer than the current Christian adoption movement has existed.  Indeed, I fell for that rhetoric at one time in my life, and so I understand it deeply.   And if you have something to say as well which I have not heard before, I am eager to hear that as well. 

Do not confuse apparent “negativity” with a lack of positive prescriptions.  I have plenty to say about what should and could be done to fix the problems.  And indeed in my articles I’ve made very specific proposals.  But I know that my solutions will not be palatable until and unless the scope of the problem is acknowledged.   

So happy reading, and let’s keep the dialogue going!

David Smolin


Journal of Christian Legal Thought, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 2012