Intercountry adoption, final thoughts

(Part 3 of a 3-part IntLawGrrls guest contribution, an interdisciplinary conversation on intercountry adoptions between Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin and Dr. Patricia Y. Jones. Part 1 discussed the case of Justin Hansen, the adoptive child who was sent back to Russia by his American adoptive mother. Part 2 considered the case of a boy arrested with guns at his Minnesota school).
Michele: Each year, over 1,500 Russian children can be expected to be brought into American homes. Generally, this process will cost Americans upwards of $30,000 per child. Some critics point out that it would be far less expensive to adopt children from less exotic locations, like Detroit and Milwaukee, than from abroad. Such concerns usually hint at race, as most children in foster care are black, and studies show that whites would prefer to adopt from abroad or adopt a child with severe disabilities than to adopt a black child.
Patricia: There are a number of reasons why this may be the case.
Many people would simply prefer to adopt a child who looks like they could be a part of their family. Some people are understandably uneasy about navigating the social waters that come with having a child that obviously might not be their genetically related child. That discomfort is part of the price of living in a racially polarized nation.
Perhaps the National Association of Black Social Workers has succeeded in identifying the skill sets and social capacities white parents would need in order to adopt a black child in America. Many white families may not be willing to change their customary social functioning to accommodate a black child. Children bring change -- even when they are your own biological children. Adopting transnationally also requires developing new skill sets, and perhaps making social changes in a family’s usual social network. Just because the Russian children share the same complexion as their prospective parents does not make this any less a cross-cultural adoption. This is especially critical when adopting older children.
Michele: But there are also some issues that policy makers and those interested in transnational adoptions would be wise to address, particularly given the profit motivations and financial incentives at play in international adoptions. Transnational adoptions are now a growing cottage industry. Each year the number of international adoptions by Americans increases -- despite language barriers, cultural differences, and financial costs.
Americans lead the world in adopting from abroad. Given what Americans are willing to spend financially, and expend emotionally, some agencies with less altruistic motivations have entered the adoption marketplace. In the worst cases, children not available for adoption, because they have families or were not sent to an orphanage, end up being sent to the United States. Some of these matters could be more easily dealt with when there are no language barriers. But given the significant number of adoptions from Korea, Ethiopia, China, Russia, Guatemala, and other countries where English is not spoken, the challenges become more obvious on inspection.
Patricia: The transnational adoption world would change dramatically if prospective parents were required to have conversational knowledge of the child’s primary language. Many of the abuses by those trafficking in children would stop if they knew prospective parents would be able to converse with their prospective children from another country.
Having a shared language would seem to be the rudimentary platform for which parenting a child from another country can begin. Children with a primary language are routinely placed in homes with parents who cannot communicate with them and unfortunately with parents who also have no desire to learn the child’s primary language. That is absurd.
Michele: The tales of Justin Hansen and Joey Jarvis are yet to fully unfold. Joey, the 14 year old on whose case we posted yesterday, is now in juvenile detention awaiting a decision from prosecutors as to whether he will be charged as an adult from threatening to kill his classmates and teachers. And as for 7 year old Justin, about whom we posted earlier. He has returned to his native country after an unsuccessful adoption by a woman who likely wishes that she had been better prepared for the challenges of adoption.
Exposed, however, are the weaknesses in the intercountry adoption system. Follow-up support is not always available. And support groups are not always local; rather, they are spread across the country (and world).

Intercountry adoption, a 2d snapshot

(Part 2 of a 3-part IntLawGrrls guest contribution, an interdisciplinary conversation on intercountry adoptions between Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin and Dr. Patricia Y. Jones. Part 1, which discussed the case of Justin Hansen, the adoptive child who was sent back to Russia by his American adoptive mother, is here. Part 3 is still to come.)

Michele: Only a few days before Justin Hansen’s untimely departure from a Washington, D.C., airport, another Russian boy, Joey Jarvis, age 14, was placed into police custody in Hastings, Minnesota, after threatening to kill his classmates and teachers at Hastings Middle School. (image credit) Although twice the age of Justin, he too had been returned by his adoptive parents. Only they did not send him back to Russia -- they gave him to the State of Minnesota last year.

This past April 5, Joey, who had been adopted from a Russian orphanage when he was 3 years old, set off to school with a gun, bullets, and rage. According to police, no one was shot because the bullets were the wrong size. But that did not stop Joey from breaking windows and attempting to break into classrooms -- where his classmates and teachers waited in fear, hoping for the police to arrive.

His adoptive parents, whose names have not been released for their safety, tried to warn state officials about Joey’s violent tendencies, his threats to cut family members into “tiny pieces,” and other antisocial behavior, including an effort to taint drinks with rat poison. Unlike the Hansens’, Joey’s parents did try therapy -- and lots of it -- before giving up.

Patricia: Theirs is a story of parents who appeared to try to go the distance with their adopted child. While they had some clues even at age 3 that this child might have severe emotional problems, because they were not mental health professionals they probably were not attuned to what these signs meant and the possible severity.

Once a child, especially a teenager, is a clear danger to himself and others, then the parents have to remove the child for the safety of their other children and themselves. They exhausted their healthcare benefits trying to get this child psychiatric help. After their insurance was exhausted, their only choice was to give him to the state so that he could continue to get help. The state was not a better parent for this child. His documented medical background and psychiatric history were essentially ignored, and the child welfare system placed Joey in another home. A large number of people give up their biological children to the state -- which essentially means the child is placed in child welfare or the juvenile delinquency system. Of those children relinquished to the state, a disproportionate number of the cases involve adopted children.

Michele: The journeys of Joey Jarvis and Justin Hansen are two snapshots, and do not paint the full picture of American adoptions from Russia, or from abroad generally. Many international adoptions help satisfy the need for American adults who want to parent, and provide children with healthier homes and living environments than they would have had at Russian orphanages. The stories of these two boys help to elevate awareness of the need for a sustained contemporary conversation about international and local adoptions -- and specifically, for urgent examination of the quality of care children receive in group homes, orphanages, and other living situations, including within families.

Guest Bloggers: Michele Bratcher Goodwin & Patricia Y. Jones

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Michele Bratcher Goodwin (right) and Dr. Patricia Y. Jones (left) as guest bloggers. Beginning today, they contribute an interdisciplinary conversation (here are Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) on intercountry adoptions.
► Michele, the Everett Fraser Professor in Law at the University of Minnesota, holds joint appointments at the University of Minnesota Medical School and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Her courses include Biotechnology Law, Genetic Property and the Law, Health Law Policy, Health Law Regulations, Law and Education, Legal Ethics, Mental Health Law, and Torts. She is a leading voice in the debates on socioeconomics and race in medicine, having founded the country's 1st center for studying race and bioethics.
Michele's served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California-Berkeley, and was honored with a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Griffith University in Australia. Prior to law teaching Michele -- who earned her J.D. degree at Boston College Law school and holds B.A. and LL.M. degrees from the University of Wisconsin -- was a Gilder-Lehrman postdoctoral fellow at Yale University.
Notable among Michele's many publications is her scholarship on organ transplant policy. Urging a broader reconciliation of the legal treatments of women with differing social statuses, she's helped redefine evaluation of reproductive technology policy. In addition to the forthcoming book Biotechnology and Bioethics, she's the author of Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Human Body Parts (2006), published in Portuguese translation in 2008. The new collection she edited, Baby Markets: Money and the Politics of Creating Families (2010) (right), contains essays by Michele and others, among them IntLawGrrl Naomi Cahn, guest/alumna Michelle Olbermann, and my California-Davis colleague Lisa C. Ikemoto. Michele also co-edited Imagining, Writing, (Re)Reading the Black Body (2009).
Among her many professional achievements, Michele is the former Secretary General of the International Academy of Law & Mental Health and Past Chair of the Section on Law, Medicine, and Health Care of the American Association of Law Schools. She's received the Black Pearl Award and the Chicago History Museum’s Pioneering Women Award, and been commissioned a Kentucky Colonel.
► Patricia, a licensed clinical psychologist based in Chicago, has over twenty five years of experience as a clinician and administrator of mental health programs. She's a member of the Steering Committee of Psychologists for Social Responsibility.
Her vocational experience encompasses an array of clinical settings: public and private, profit and not-for-profit, and academic institutions. Consistent is her focus on access to and development of appropriate mental health care for children and their families. She has specific interests in applied psychological practice with culturally diverse populations, in interpersonal violence with concomitant post-traumatic stress disorders, and in child abuse. Patricia provides consultation and/or clinical supervision to administrative and program staff who serve a diverse population within a wide variety of social service organizations; especially, to Child Protective Services across the United States.

Patricia earned her B.S. degree in Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University, and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Heartfelt welcome!

Intercountry adoptions, a conversation

(Part 1 of a 3-part IntLawGrrls guest contribution, an interdisciplinary conversation on intercountry adoptions between Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin and Dr. Patricia Y. Jones. Inspired by a recent news story, it follows the publication this February of a book Michele edited, Baby Markets: Money and the New of Creating Families)
United States and Russian officials have been discussing what to do about U.S. adoptions from Russia. The meetings come on the heel of the story that Justin Hansen, a 7-year-old Russian boy, was sent back to Russia by his adoptive mother, Torry Hansen, a nurse from Tennessee. While most of the attention in the case has focused on her behavior, little has been explored about the complex issues associated with Russian adoptions.
Russia and former Soviet bloc countries have been a draw for Americans. Couples from the United States adopt more Russian children than any other nation.

But this story made headline news because of a controversial, and rather unorthodox decision made by his adoptive mother, along with his adoptive grandmother: They sent him back to Russia, with an “unaccompanied minor” ticket and a note. Their personal decision has become the subject of international policy and adoption politics, drawing significant scrutiny to international adoptions, and raising questions as to why Americans pass over plenty of children available for adoption in the United States. Critics and child advocacy groups wonder why the women did not try harder.

We endeavor here to discuss the underlying issues.

Patricia: It’s reported that the adoptive mother only had “Justin” in her home for six months. That's hardly enough time for either parent or child to get beyond any adjustment issues to a new home, family and culture. While we don’t know the full story and what she did try, sending him back is another rejection, and one that can be psychologically traumatizing. There are so many messages in that: “You are unloveable,” “You are not wanted,” “You are not worth investing in.”

When we have biological children, we don’t know what we are going to get, and we don’t get to send them back. The hopeful aspiration is that the commitment to adopted children will be the same as one we would have to a biological child.

Michele: In their defense, the mother and daughter pair asserted that they tried everything in their power to integrate the child into his new American life -- including changing his name from Artyom, and giving him a loving home. But ultimately they feared for their safety. They allege that the adoption agency lied to them about his emotional and mental health. In the note sent with the child, the adoptive mother wrote:

'This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues/behaviors. I was lied to and misled by the Russian Orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues.'

Patricia: How would you (or your child) feel if you were taken to Russia? Given strange food, isolated from anyone who spoke your language? Told “you are lucky to be here” in a language you did not understand? And stripped of your name -- how was that understood by the child? A name is a source of identity and connection to culture. Stripping persons of their name is a means of culturally isolating them, and basically communicating that their culture or nationality is not acceptable. It was a common practice during slavery. While a loving home may have been the intent of these women, one could question the loving home premise. I am not sure the child felt loved; in fact his behavior suggests he was very unhappy and not adjusting. Because the adoptive mother did not know the child’s primary language, she was incapable of communicating with “Justin” about his discomfort.

As a psychologist, I am concerned that the mother was unfamiliar with her adoptive child’s native language. At 7 this is his primary language. A thorough assessment would have noted the language barrier as possibly interfering with the adequate parenting of this child. A good home assessment would also include some exploration of the parent’s familiarity with, affinity for, and capacity to affirm the child’s culture. The quality of preparation for prospective parents to adopt transnationally varies from agency to agency.
Michele: This case and others raise a number of urgent issues about international adoptions, including the:

► Exploitation of children,

► Vulnerability of adoptive parents,

► Market structure of adoptions, which incentivizes placements at all costs,

► Morality of “returning children” as if they are items from a store, and

► Lack of capacity for some adoptive parents to meet the challenges of raising children from different cultures.

(Still to come: Part 2 & Part 3)