Lawyers, Ethics and an Adoptive Parent

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking on an adoptive parent panel.  The audience consisted mainly of law students/new lawyers and focused on adoption law. 

Now you might ask yourself since neither of my adoptions involved a lawyer in any way (beyond the fabulous lawyer who offered me notary services- Hi Dad!!!) what I could possibly say to a group of lawyers who will be working with domestic adoptions.  

(It's okay to ask yourself that- I asked the very same question myself)

But since I don't have much insight into the whole domestic adoption thing I tend to focus on two things- issues in trans-racial adoption and ethics.

So I give my 20 minutes presentation and one thing I specifically focus on in regards to ethics is the process in which parents "relinquish" babies to the agencies (in other words how orphans are manufactured) and I specifically use the situation in Ethiopia as an example.  

So the presentations end, the participants go out to take a break and a couple of them come up to talk to the panelists.  One in particular, makes his way over to me and says

"My wife and I just sent our dossier to Ethiopia" 

He pauses and I am not sure if he is waiting for me to tell him he's crazy, or it will all be fine or maybe that I was just kidding about that ethical stuff I just spent 20 minutes talking about.  

But whatever the reason, it is a rather uncomfortable pause so I ask "What agency are you using?" (secretly hoping that he is with one of the 3 or 4 who are more ethical than not)

He looks down and says "CWA" 

At this point my fellow Ethiopian adoptive parents are saying to themselves "Oh crap" (or worse) and my non-Ethiopian adoptive parents are going "huh?"  (So for a quick tutorial CWA is the agency at the center of this expose or this one) 

But bottom line this is a an agency with some serious questions with ethics.

Before I can say anything (verbally as I am sure the look on my face spoke volumes) he says "Yeah we read all the stuff on the internet but we read the agency's response and we think it..."

(okay, I am going to be honest and admit I have no idea what he said next because I am still trying to fathom the fact that KNEW this agency's history and went with them anyway)  

And then I realize it doesn't mater what I say because he believes the agency and no amount of evidence is going to sway him differently.  

There are no agencies in Ethiopia right now that I believe can guarantee an 100% ethical adoption.  I think there are agencies who have 100% ethical adoptions most of the time and who are trying to ensure every adoption is 100% ethical.  I also think there are (many) agencies that the odds are probably 50/50 the adoption will be 100% ethical and then there are agencies that I think almost guarantee that the adoption will not be 100% ethical and if it is, it is blind luck.  I can not understand why you would choose to go with an agency with that HUGE  question mark hanging over their operation.  What service could they provide, what   healthy infant girls as young as possible as soon as possible   incentive to entice parents to overlook such a big issue as possible child trafficking?

But whatever it  healthy infant girls as young as possible as soon as possible   was, they believed it.  So all I could do advise him that if he cared at all about ethics he needs to hire a private investigator (separate from the agency) and investigate his child's history BEFORE they arrive in Ethiopia to become the child's legal parents. 

I have to admit though that my first thought was to tell him to starting working now on the explanation he plans on using with his child in the future because I suspect he's going to have some explaining to do.