The American Adoption Policy

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that modern adoption policy is as much a part of the general ideas about social welfare as it is about the right of a family to raise a child that is not originally its own. The author points out that, in the beginning, the heart of the process by which adoption policy developed in the U.S. did not entail questions of "marginal" groups or individuals possessing adoption rights but, rather, the attitude of society to the very idea of creating "fictive kin". The paper relates that the old concept of matching children with potential parents is no longer a question of find a child, which is nearly identical biological and social "copies" of the parents, because America has become racially and ethnically diverse and follows values which emphasize serving each individual child in the best way.

From the Paper:

"Yet, as the child welfare movement began to gather strength, a new attitude developed. Increasingly, children living in certain "substandard" conditions were seen as deserving something "better." Those who did not possess the resources to care for their children, or who abused their children, or raised them in a manner inconsistent with contemporary middle-class values, might find their children being taken away from them. For the first time, the once inviolable bond between biological parent and child was being broken."

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