27th March 08,
Adoption is a legal way of providing a child with a parent or parents other than their biological or true parents. With the adoption order, the biological parents’ parental responsibility will be severed and will be transferred to the adoptive parents. When the adoption was finalized, there will be no legal difference between the adopted children and those born to the parents.
There are several kinds of adoption and each of this has its own rules and features.
The adoption process will start at the biological parents to wether they want their child adopted. They can choose to what family will they want to adopt their child. Parent may know the adoptive family of their child depending on the jurisdiction and local law of the place they are leaving. Parents may also find people who wants to adopt their child by going to the lawyers, social services or institutions or thru a private agency. Private adoption arrangements can be illegal in some jurisdictions. The parents may also choose if they want an open, semi-open , or closed adoption.
There are also some states that allows biological mothers to leave their 10 days old enfant in any nearby police stations, fire departments or hospitals. However, this law is being criticized by adoptee advocacy organisations because according to them this is dangerous.
Open or fully disclosed adoption allows the adoptive parents or adoptive child to interact with the real or biological parents. Communications may include letters, emails, phone calls or visits. Frequency of contact can be every few years to several a month or more.
The advantage of open adoption is that it will answers the identity questions about the adoptive child. But despite of the advantage there can also be a disadvantage of it. There can be no or less chance for assimilation into family.
Even in an open adoption with constant communication of the biological parents, the legal parent of the adoptive child can still be the adoptive parents.
In an semi-open adoption, the biological parent may meet the adoptive parent once or several times. But after that there can be no physical contact anymore. Letters and pictures can be exchanged directly or thru a third party like an adoption agency throughout the year.
Types of adoption (by location and origin)
International Adoption is placing a child for adoption outside the adoptive childs’ country of birth and residence. Every country have different law and differs on their willingness to allow international adoptions. While Romania completely does not allow international adoptions except to close relatives.
Adoption occurs for many reasons, one them is the infertility of the family that wishes to adopt. Another reason is a child is abondoned and their biological parent is not traceable. Another reeason is that biological parent tends to place their child to adoption due to lack of capability to take care of the child adequately.