Friday, December 3, 2010

Herein Lies The Root of the Problem...

In Ontario, Governor General David Johnston used his first official visit to Queen’s Park to implore MPPs to make it easier for women to get pregnant and for families to adopt children......

Johnston has five daughters and seven grandchildren. Two of his grandchildren were adopted from Colombia; two are the result of fertility treatment; and two came about through a surrogate mother carrying the embryos of one of his daughters and sons-in-law.
Premier Dalton McGuinty, who counts one of Johnston’s daughters as a senior adviser, hailed the new governor general.....

“I think these are values that the McGuinty government shares with the Governor General and I hope that they will take this time to step up and act,” said expert panel member William Falk.
Falk, a father of two adopted sons, joined the Adoption Council of Ontario at Queen’s Park last month to press the province for action on the report that is now 15 months old.
All the key interest groups support the main thrust of the expert panel report, he said.
The report goes on to talk about "languishing" children and subsidies for those who adopt children with special needs. However, seeing how the US pays states to rush foster children into adoption and seeing how the US  tax benefit uses the children in foster care to get approval and then gives most of the money to those adoption internationally, and seeing those who are proposing this legislation, it must be watched with great caution.

 As long as adoption is tied into infertility and reproductive issues and "rights" children are viewed as a commodity to cure childlessness instead of seen as human being with rights to their family receiving assistance and support services.

“Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year . . .” The Special Rapporteur, United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, 2003.

6 comments:

Von said...

Yes a dangerous trend, especially for "languishing children".

O Solo Mama said...

Canadians who adopt internationally already get a child tax credit. Never got one personally myself but this has been the law for at least five years, I think.

O Solo Mama said...

The Governor General's focus is the Canadian foster care system, especially Crown wards. There are approximately 35,000 children in foster care right now, including 9,300 Crown wards with no hope of reuniting with their families--yet only 8 per cent of them have a pending adoption plan. Also, those kids are in need of something better than foster care. A lot of them have ADHD and speech and language disorders and most have an IEP. But there is no centralized agency to oversee adoption plans for those kids or any other kid in foster care.

It sounds like you were more interested in reporting the details of the GG's family composition.

Mirah Riben said...

There are half a million children in US foster care and approx. 120,00 of them who cannot be reunited with original families and COULD be adopted.

My concerns are that these children are used to pawns to gain sympathy and knee-jerk feel-good reactions to pass all legislation that promotes ALL adoptions, not just special need adoptions.

Of particular concern is the US tax benefit.
I thought I had blogged all the details of this program, but see that I need to and will do so ASAP.

Mirah Riben said...

The US tax credit was first enacted in 1996 “to encourage further the adoption of special needs children.” The “special needs” wording in the original legislation was the foot in the door. However, the U.S. Treasury Department reveals:
• The vast majority of adoption tax credit recipients completed private or international adoptions rather than adoptions from foster care.
• The tax credit disproportionately supports higher-income families.
• The tax credit primarily supports the adoption of younger children.

“Today’s reality is that the original intent of the adoption tax credit legislation has been turned upside down,” reports Joe Kroll, NACAC's Executive Director (“The Adoption Tax Credit: An Ethical Dilemma” Fall 2007Adoptalk).

“Those who most need support to adopt (lower-income families who are adopting children from foster care) are receiving the least benefit, and those for whom the financial outlay is not a barrier to adoption benefit the most.”

The adoption tax credit has been renewed and increased every year. The current figure is $13,170 per child. In addition to the credit, certain amounts paid by employers for qualifying adoption expenses may be excludable from one’s gross income. For 2010, congress additionally enhanced the adoption tax credit by making it refundable. Previously, any adoption credits in excess of a person's federal tax liability could be carried over for up to five years; now the flat rate overage that is not based on actual cost of the adoption is refundable.

Mirah Riben said...

The reason for noting the the lawmakers suggesting this are adoptive parents is because of a human tendency to promote that which one finds worked well for them. If they owned major shares in insurance or petroleum or any other companies and were promoting legislation to ease regulation on that industry, would that not be relevant?

Should their personal connection to the issue at hand be ignored? Seems it is publicly known. It's not like I did a lot of hunting and searching secret documents to discover it - it was right there in the article!

While some aps want their adoption to be private and object to adopted children being identified as adopted children in the media,
others - in particular public figures - often use their adoptive status for bragging rights beleiving it makes them appear more "saintly" to let everyone know their "nobility" in having "rescued' a child.

RussiaToday Apr 29, 2010 on Russian Adoption Freeze

Russi Today: America television Interview 4/16/10 Regarding the Return of Artyem, 7, to Russia alone

RT: Russia-America TV Interview 3/10

Korean Birthmothers Protest to End Adoption

Motherhood, Adoption, Surrender, & Loss

Who Am I?

Bitter Winds

Adoption and Truth Video

Adoption Truth

Birthparents Never Forget