Arguments against gay adoption 2012

Rather, legal responsibility is held by the social service agency, and decision-making responsibility is shared between the agency and birth parents USDHHS, Lack of legal or decision-making authority can undermine parental entitlement and attachment on the part of foster-to-adopters; but these dynamics have been subject to little formal investigation Neil et al.

Although foster-to-adopters may have a strong sense of emotional responsibility for the children in their care, they are not their legal parents. The claim is that Catholic adoption agencies unjustly discriminate when they refuse to place children with same-sex couples.

after marr to adopt a child, which is a longer wait than a straight couple has. Same-Sex Parents and Child Development Many biases against same-sex adoption stem from old stereotypes about the LGBTQ community. Foster-to-adopt parents interact with multiple systems during the foster-to-adopt process, including the legal system, the social service agency, and the birth family system — all of which may be experienced as stressful and as interfering with placement stability and success.

Logically, however, for each of these arguments, there exists a counterargument. But that's not true at all. Foster-to-adopters are expected to assist the children in navigating the foster process, which may include birth parent visits, and they agree to adopt the children if and when the birth parental rights are terminated.

Participants as a whole also identified positive aspects of their experiences within various systems; for example, they appreciated child care subsidies, state-provided health insurance, and supportive social workers.

Barriers to Adoption for

Foster-to-adopt families can be viewed as systems that are influenced by many other systems e. Thus, their early lives have often been marked by instability and chaos. Lack of support services and disorganization within social service agencies, as well as strained relationships with birth parents, were also identified as stressors for foster-to-adopt parents.

Importantly, lesbian and gay participants faced additional concerns regarding the security of their placement, due to the possibility for discrimination within the various systems involved with the foster-to-adopt process. In the following sections, we a briefly discuss the challenges associated with the transition to parenthood for foster-to-adopters; b introduce the current study; and c highlight the types of challenges and stressors that foster-to-adopters generally—and sexual minority foster-to-adopters specifically—may encounter in the legal, agency, and birth family contexts, in the post-placement period.

Also, both rict laws against LGBT joint adoption that h various factors, both political and societal, that deny the LGBT population their right to adopt children and have a family, while examining ways to alleviate the discriminatory policies and practices they face.

This literature has been limited in several ways. Becoming an adoptive parent is additionally complicated by issues unique to adoption Goldberg, In the case of child welfare adoptions, the transition is even more complex. The placement of children who have difficult histories can add stress to the family system.

Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This study aims to address these gaps in the literature by examining members of 42 lesbian, gay, and heterosexual foster-to-adopt couples in the immediate post-placement period.

Some participants described the legal insecurity associated with their role as foster-to-adopt parents as impacting their personal well-being and their attachment to their children. Keywords: adoption, child welfare, discrimination, foster care, gay, lesbian, public adoption.

Official websites use. Yet little research has examined the types of challenges and stressors that foster-to-adopt parents encounter in these contexts, particularly in the immediate post-placement period. As a result, these children often go on to have more diverse, open, and well-rounded perspectives that only aid in developing a more understanding and accepting world (“Arguments for and against Gay Adoption”).

Children who are adopted via the child welfare i. Social workers thought the children of gay, lesbian, and bisexual parents would grow up confused about their sexual orientation. This inattention to the early post-placement period for foster-to-adopters is problematic, given that this is often a time of acute stress, and represents a key point of entry for practitioner efforts to prevent disruption.

Parents who seek to adopt children through the welfare system but who must foster their children for a period of time before they can legally adopt them are called foster-to-adopt parents. Indeed, in their study of adoptive parents, Brooks, Kim, and Wind () reported that a higher proportion of gay and lesbian parents expressed the need for legal advice during the adoption process compared to heterosexual parents.

Furthermore, the existing research on this topic has largely examined the experiences of heterosexual parents. The current qualitative study of 84 foster-to-adopt parents members of 42 lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples examined the types of challenges that parents faced as they navigated multiple systems during the initial post-placement period.