Literature Review
In recent years there has been an ongoing discussion regarding whether or not disabled individuals can be adoptive parents. Through the use of the sources I have collected I will be exploring this argument as well as presenting my own opinion and ideas.
Despite the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which protects those with disabilities from discrimination by private and state institutions (Freudlich), many prospective adoptive parents with disabilities have been turned down by adoption agencies (Rouba). This prompts many potential parents to look outside of the United States for children to adopt, unfortunately this has the potential to create an entire new set of challenges.
According to the National Council on Disability, three of the top five countries with the most children up for adoption have restrictions that almost entirely limit the adoption of children by those with disabilities. This is because these countries are far behind the United States in terms of equality for the disabled. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a UN document, seeks to fix this by bringing the rest of the world up to the standards that the United States upholds. Passing this document would in theory prevent discrimination based on disability, but as we have seen in America, it has problems being enforced.
The basic argument against disabled parents presented by China and Russia (the first and third top senders in the world) is that they would not want to place a child in an environment where the child would be faced with undue emotional stress and endangerment brought upon by the parent’s disability. A common demographic that would be discriminated against would be a wheelchair user. It is perceived that the child could not live a normal life if put into the care of a person in a wheelchair because that person is restricted from many life activities. I think the reason for this is that in those countries, not being up to the same standards that the CRPD would provide, being in a wheelchair is really a crippling thing. Because they do not have accessible anything creates a mindset that wheelchair users cannot live a normal life, which isn’t the case in countries such as the US. On top of this, countries that participate in the Hague Convention usually require that the adoptive parent visit the country a couple of times. If your country is not accessible to somebody who can not walk, there is no way the parent can follow the required steps to become a parent
In an info-graphic on disabled-world.com an estimated 3.3 million people in the United States use wheelchairs, which is roughly 1 percent of the population. I propose that some sort of case study be done on the chair users that are of age to adopt, to determine how much their lives are truly affected by their disability, in the hopes of advocating their ability to be adequate parents. Doing so could change the minds of adoption agencies in a domestic and international setting, reducing discrimination and increasing the adoptions granted to wheelchair users.
Despite the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which protects those with disabilities from discrimination by private and state institutions (Freudlich), many prospective adoptive parents with disabilities have been turned down by adoption agencies (Rouba). This prompts many potential parents to look outside of the United States for children to adopt, unfortunately this has the potential to create an entire new set of challenges.
According to the National Council on Disability, three of the top five countries with the most children up for adoption have restrictions that almost entirely limit the adoption of children by those with disabilities. This is because these countries are far behind the United States in terms of equality for the disabled. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a UN document, seeks to fix this by bringing the rest of the world up to the standards that the United States upholds. Passing this document would in theory prevent discrimination based on disability, but as we have seen in America, it has problems being enforced.
The basic argument against disabled parents presented by China and Russia (the first and third top senders in the world) is that they would not want to place a child in an environment where the child would be faced with undue emotional stress and endangerment brought upon by the parent’s disability. A common demographic that would be discriminated against would be a wheelchair user. It is perceived that the child could not live a normal life if put into the care of a person in a wheelchair because that person is restricted from many life activities. I think the reason for this is that in those countries, not being up to the same standards that the CRPD would provide, being in a wheelchair is really a crippling thing. Because they do not have accessible anything creates a mindset that wheelchair users cannot live a normal life, which isn’t the case in countries such as the US. On top of this, countries that participate in the Hague Convention usually require that the adoptive parent visit the country a couple of times. If your country is not accessible to somebody who can not walk, there is no way the parent can follow the required steps to become a parent
In an info-graphic on disabled-world.com an estimated 3.3 million people in the United States use wheelchairs, which is roughly 1 percent of the population. I propose that some sort of case study be done on the chair users that are of age to adopt, to determine how much their lives are truly affected by their disability, in the hopes of advocating their ability to be adequate parents. Doing so could change the minds of adoption agencies in a domestic and international setting, reducing discrimination and increasing the adoptions granted to wheelchair users.