this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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I watched a video by an adoptee who advocates against the adoption industry, claiming it is akin to human trafficking, and generally arguing that adoption is immoral.

This surprised me as something that I’ve never thought much about. Are there hexbears with thoughts or feelings on this view of adoption? Preferably people with direct experience? Any reading from a left/Marxist perspective would also be appreciated.

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[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 16 points 1 month ago

What really fucking sucks is that adoption under the present system can be terrible, but what else is in place for children from parents that are gone, absent, or unwilling?

[–] AcidSmiley@hexbear.net 13 points 1 month ago

I recently went over the adotption statistics for Germany and it's actually pretty rare nowadays, partially thanks to advances in reproductive medicine. We had 3600 adoptions here last year - a third of that was from women in a lesbian relationship who adopted the child of their partner (lesbian co-mothers are openly discriminated by law, they have to adopt the child of their wife in a highly buerocratic and often humiliating procedure, whereas the husband of the mother in a straight relationship is automatically considered the father, even when the child was conceived through a sperm donation). Most of the rest were stepchild adoptions in straight relationships, and the children were usually not newborns, this typically happens when the new partner of a mother wants to become a legal guardian of the child. So the vast majority of adoptions happen in families that already exist, but where one partner does not have legal guardianship in spite of being the live-in partner of the mother. Adoptions from orphanages and of newborns from anonymous births who are directly given up for adoption only make up about 3% and 2% of all cases. International adoptions are slightly more common, but only make up another 7%. The only ethical problem i see here is with these about 250 kids who got adopted from abroad, because there can be situations that are hands-down human trafficking. I don't know how many of these 7% are actually orphans from a developing country finding a new home and how many are impoverished parents selling one of their children - the latter is obviously unacceptable, and i'm sure it does happen, but i have no idea how common that is. What i can safely say is that it's not representative of adoption as a whole.

I can also safely say that anybody who claims that adoption is a viable alternative to abortion is full of shit (even if we somehow discard the monstrosity of demanding of people to carry an unwanted child to term and giving it away). We had 106,000 abortions last year, compared to less than 500 adoptions that weren't a form of stepchild adoption. As usual, forced birth advocates do not give a fuck about what happens to children once they're born.

[–] StalinistSteve@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 month ago

Yeah it's horrible. Everyone I know that was in it had parents that adopted them because they got gov money and/or to take care of them while they themselves are unable to take care of children. Adopting can get kids out of this horrible system and be good if you're ready for it but the industry and specifically picking out an Asian child trafficked from South Korea or smth is alllll too common and fucked af

[–] imogen_underscore@hexbear.net 12 points 1 month ago

adoption under capitalism is fucked and bad

[–] SpiderFarmer@hexbear.net 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm not an expert in this subject (especially as a white dude), but in the past CPS or similar groups in the US would abduct American Indian kids. Ironically the Nixon admin (at least on paper) put a stop to this, though I think there's been attempts to repeal that bill as of late.

[–] comrade_pibb@hexbear.net 9 points 1 month ago

Nixon is a far left bleeding heart liberal by today's standard

[–] Guamer@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago

I'm assuming we're talking specifically about the adoption industry and not adoption as a concept, right?