Monday, September 16, 2013

The CNN Coverage on Intercountry Adoption

Recently, the CNN has featured an article on adoptees trying to bring about closure of intercountry adoption.  I was interviewed for this, and the author Wilfred Chan was a very nice guy with an open ear, but I was informed that he left CNN in the middle of the story.  So along the way the CNN finished the story, with strong tilt to adoptees that advocate closure of intercountry adoption.  I found this unfortunate.  I noticed that CNN has ignored some of my critical comments from the article, which I have decided to post under the comment section in the article. 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/world/international-adoption-korea-adoptee-advocates/index.html

At the end of the article, I left a comment, which is enclosed here for your infomation.

"It is a real tragedy when the law that was supposed to protect the children's welfare has turned against them. The law has resulted in the abandonment of over 200 children since it's enactment in Aug 2012. 43% of birthmothers left notes blaming the special adoption law for causing them to abandon their babies. Even now there are stories of birthmothers abandoning their children and in some cases murdering them to get out of their burdens. The issue of birthmothers and adoption need to go hand-in-hand. They must work together, as the lives of children are at stake. Adoptees advocating the closure of intercountry adoption and even speaking agianst domestic adoption is not helping with the situation. One cannot kill the other to make the other survive. One cannot kill adoption to make birthmothers cause come alive. Adoption does not cause separation of children from their birth parents. Rather, it is in response to already separated children that birthmothers decided to give up. One should focus on raising the issues of birthmothers by speaking to bring about changes in the society that has such a strong stigma against unwed mothers. Adoptees should campaign to bring about more acceptable culture where unwed mothers can raise their children. This is where their focus should be, not by speaking against adoption. The most unfortunate thing with the current adoption law is that if a child is not adopted, the record remains with birthmothers, and the birthmothers do not want to risk this. That's reason for the huge number of abandonments in Korea. Are we really doing what is best for the homeless children?"


2 comments:

  1. Thank you, Steve, for speaking up and working to make sure that the issue is much more complicated than many might first believe. And thank you for always making it known that the welfare of the children is front-and-center of what MPAK is doing.

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