There is some really excellent discussion happening in the comments of my last post, “Pregnancy: a Public Affair,” in which I wrote about how society allows and encourages people to make pregnant bodies their business, and how that has affected my thoughts on whether or not to ever become pregnant.
One topic that has come up in comments is the ethics and justice of adoption and adoption as a feminist issue. People seem pretty interested in discussing this topic, but it’s not directly related to the original post. So I thought I’d go ahead and open up a new post dedicated to adoption issues.
To start the discussion, I have some questions:
How can or should we view adoption as a feminist issue? As a class, race, or disability issue? Whose rights stand to be compromised when adoption is or is not an available option?
Does every child have a right to be raised by the people whose genetic material helped create them?
Does every genetic parent have a right to raise their genetic children?
Do people who are unable (though biology or circumstance), or do not desire, to conceive children have a right to raise children?
If you believe adoption is problematic, what circumstances would make it less so?
Since this is a feminist blog, let’s try to make this a critical discussion, rather than simply an airing of personal grievances. (Personal experiences are the foundation of feminism, so I encourage sharing them. But I ask that in this thread we use them to engage with others, build understanding, and provide insight.) And as always, please be respectful!
ETA: Links and resources are greatly appreciated. However, your comment will get mistaken for spam (by the spam filter, which is not human) if it contains 5 or more links. I may eventually fish it out of the spam filter and make sure it gets published, but you might want to limit yourself to 4 or fewer links per comment, just to be safe.