Researching Disability
There is an ongoing argument
in the world of disability, regarding the ability of the disabled to adopt
children. For many, having a child of one’s own is impossible, and adoption is
the only way they can make that a reality. This is the case for many disabled
people within the United States in particular. Despite the ADA, and the
adoption of the Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the
majority of countries (especially the countries that have the most children to adopt)
has and will discriminate against almost all of those who are disabled in
regards to the adoption of children. This paper will present this argument
through a variety of sources, and I will make an argument as to how this could
be remediated for future adoptive parents with disabilities.
The ADA, formally known as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, clearly states that it “prohibits discrimination and ensures equal opportunity for persons with disabilities in employment, State and local government services, public accommodations, commercial facilities, and transportation." One might think that adoption agencies fall under these categories, and yes, they do. Yet even today it is still hard for a disabled person to adopt due to the bias of social workers and the families giving children up for adoption. These instances of discrimination are usually uncontested. Some reasons for this might be that statistically speaking, those with disabilities are in general lower income individuals, without the means of hiring an attorney to sue adoption agencies. Adoption is expensive as is, so the logical next step for a parent that cannot adopt domestically, and that is international adoption.
In terms of discrimination against the disabled and accessibility, most of the world is not up to par with The United States: enter the CRPD. The Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is a U.N. document that essentially will facilitate bringing the rest of the world up to code regarding disabled rights. This is great, and rights both human and civil are being provided to the disabled on an international scale, but what about the right to parenthood? Currently, three of the five top sending countries (sending meaning children adopted and up for adoption), Russia, China, and Ukraine all have restrictions against the adoption of children by those who have disabilities. Their reasoning behind this is that these disabled parents would be unfit to raise a child effectively and would subject it to an environment with undue stresses. Part of this may be due to the fact that in these other countries, a wheelchair user for example, would be way more disabled than they would be in a more accessible country, and since it’s a requirement in many countries such as Russia that the parents must visit the country, a chair user might be barred from adoption on the basis that they can’t navigate in that specific foreign country. This practice becomes a double edged sword in that its intention is to protect children from being placed into a family that is unsafe or hostile, but also makes it harder for a disabled person to adopt from an inaccessible country. Interestingly enough, just recently a Russian-born, American Paralympic athlete was denied eligibility to adopt a Russian child, on the basis of the Russian ban on American adoptions. Ironically enough, she should still technically be considered by Russia to be a Russian citizen, so it makes one wonder if her disability played any part in Russia's decision.
Many believe and are living proof that disabled people can be adequate parents, if not even better under certain circumstances. . A person with a disability would be more likely to adopt a disabled child with the same condition and help that child thrive, and with an estimated thirty to fifty percent of children waiting to be adopted having some sort of disability, this is an important fact to remember. I think it would be in the best interest of the disabled community as well as the adoption community if there were to be a case study on parents who are disabled (maybe they became disabled), and how their child acts in certain situations to determine whether or not the parent is adequate. It has been suggested that being raised by a disabled parent can foster compassion, empathy, and problem solving skills more so than a child raised by a family of normative able-bodied individuals. This would not only enable the adoption of children by disabled parents, but prevent discrimination towards disabled parents and their biological children such as in this case: A baby was removed from a couple, both of whom were blind, and placed in foster care for 57 days before they regained custody of their daughter. The baby was removed on the basis that the parents would be unable to raise the child effectively. What message is being sent where it seems less harmful to strip a child from its parents on the basis that they aren’t “normal?”
The main problem with our domestic adoption system currently is that despite the fact that agencies technically aren’t allow to discriminate or filter out those with disabilities, it happens indirectly. Since any agency’s duty is to find a family for a child, rather than a child for a family, socially typical, able-bodied couples are place at the highest priority. Behind them are single able-bodied individuals, and then those with mild disabilities. Individuals not falling under these criteria aren’t denied a shot, but are essentially excluded because they will never be prioritized over others. If a disabled couple or parent does somehow get a shot, there are still cases of discrimination by the birth parents and the social workers that conduct the home studies.
It is always important to realize that there have been studies done on the attitude and continuity of adoptions of disabled kids to non-disabled families (There have been studies on the attitude and continuity of the adoption), but not many (if any) done on the attitudes and continuity of adoptions of the disabled, by the disabled, which is also something important to consider. According to that study, 1/5 adoptions of a child with a disability into a non-disabled family end up not last, resulting in the child having to go through another gauntlet of moving and adoption. If it could be shown that disabled parents have less of a turnover rate when it comes to adopting disabled children that could be beneficial for both the children and the adoption agencies trying to place them. This could be done by in a number of ways, but the most effective way, in my opinion, would be to conduct a study like I mentioned earlier where a number of disabled parents (preferably with the same disability to prevent skewing data, let us use chair-users for example) adopt disabled children under the watchful eye of child services, or maybe put into their foster care if that is easier legally, and morally. These will be parents that actually want to adopt/have kids, not volunteers that weren’t planning on adopting otherwise. The study will collect data on the turnover rate of these children (with the desired result being a very low turnover rate in comparison to able-bodied parents), and it will also collect data on the ability of wheel chair users to raise children, killing two birds with one stone.
If this model were to be used with parents of varying disabilities, it would prove itself very useful in advocating the parenthood of the disabled, as well as getting more children out of orphanages. It could even later be applied on an international level. If a country such as China, which discriminates against chair users, were to be given a report that the parent in question has already successfully adopted a child and is able to effectively raise children, perhaps they would be ease up with their anti-disability adoption rules. For this to ever be a tangible goal The United States must first make the necessary changes not only in their adoption system but the attitudes of the citizen of the country, which will take the most time even with substantiated evidence from any future study.
The main questions my research has left me with is whether or not such a study would even be allowed to take place within the United States, and if it was allowed, would it be with a large enough sample size to determine whatever evidence found to be conclusive? If these studies were allowed to take place, and they did in fact prove that disabled parents are capable of raising an adopted child as well as having a lesser turnover rate when adopting disabled children versus able-bodied parents would it change the public’s attitude towards disabled parent adoption? If anything, through raising awareness of these discriminatory practices, perhaps changes could be made in the world of adoption.
The ADA, formally known as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, clearly states that it “prohibits discrimination and ensures equal opportunity for persons with disabilities in employment, State and local government services, public accommodations, commercial facilities, and transportation." One might think that adoption agencies fall under these categories, and yes, they do. Yet even today it is still hard for a disabled person to adopt due to the bias of social workers and the families giving children up for adoption. These instances of discrimination are usually uncontested. Some reasons for this might be that statistically speaking, those with disabilities are in general lower income individuals, without the means of hiring an attorney to sue adoption agencies. Adoption is expensive as is, so the logical next step for a parent that cannot adopt domestically, and that is international adoption.
In terms of discrimination against the disabled and accessibility, most of the world is not up to par with The United States: enter the CRPD. The Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is a U.N. document that essentially will facilitate bringing the rest of the world up to code regarding disabled rights. This is great, and rights both human and civil are being provided to the disabled on an international scale, but what about the right to parenthood? Currently, three of the five top sending countries (sending meaning children adopted and up for adoption), Russia, China, and Ukraine all have restrictions against the adoption of children by those who have disabilities. Their reasoning behind this is that these disabled parents would be unfit to raise a child effectively and would subject it to an environment with undue stresses. Part of this may be due to the fact that in these other countries, a wheelchair user for example, would be way more disabled than they would be in a more accessible country, and since it’s a requirement in many countries such as Russia that the parents must visit the country, a chair user might be barred from adoption on the basis that they can’t navigate in that specific foreign country. This practice becomes a double edged sword in that its intention is to protect children from being placed into a family that is unsafe or hostile, but also makes it harder for a disabled person to adopt from an inaccessible country. Interestingly enough, just recently a Russian-born, American Paralympic athlete was denied eligibility to adopt a Russian child, on the basis of the Russian ban on American adoptions. Ironically enough, she should still technically be considered by Russia to be a Russian citizen, so it makes one wonder if her disability played any part in Russia's decision.
Many believe and are living proof that disabled people can be adequate parents, if not even better under certain circumstances. . A person with a disability would be more likely to adopt a disabled child with the same condition and help that child thrive, and with an estimated thirty to fifty percent of children waiting to be adopted having some sort of disability, this is an important fact to remember. I think it would be in the best interest of the disabled community as well as the adoption community if there were to be a case study on parents who are disabled (maybe they became disabled), and how their child acts in certain situations to determine whether or not the parent is adequate. It has been suggested that being raised by a disabled parent can foster compassion, empathy, and problem solving skills more so than a child raised by a family of normative able-bodied individuals. This would not only enable the adoption of children by disabled parents, but prevent discrimination towards disabled parents and their biological children such as in this case: A baby was removed from a couple, both of whom were blind, and placed in foster care for 57 days before they regained custody of their daughter. The baby was removed on the basis that the parents would be unable to raise the child effectively. What message is being sent where it seems less harmful to strip a child from its parents on the basis that they aren’t “normal?”
The main problem with our domestic adoption system currently is that despite the fact that agencies technically aren’t allow to discriminate or filter out those with disabilities, it happens indirectly. Since any agency’s duty is to find a family for a child, rather than a child for a family, socially typical, able-bodied couples are place at the highest priority. Behind them are single able-bodied individuals, and then those with mild disabilities. Individuals not falling under these criteria aren’t denied a shot, but are essentially excluded because they will never be prioritized over others. If a disabled couple or parent does somehow get a shot, there are still cases of discrimination by the birth parents and the social workers that conduct the home studies.
It is always important to realize that there have been studies done on the attitude and continuity of adoptions of disabled kids to non-disabled families (There have been studies on the attitude and continuity of the adoption), but not many (if any) done on the attitudes and continuity of adoptions of the disabled, by the disabled, which is also something important to consider. According to that study, 1/5 adoptions of a child with a disability into a non-disabled family end up not last, resulting in the child having to go through another gauntlet of moving and adoption. If it could be shown that disabled parents have less of a turnover rate when it comes to adopting disabled children that could be beneficial for both the children and the adoption agencies trying to place them. This could be done by in a number of ways, but the most effective way, in my opinion, would be to conduct a study like I mentioned earlier where a number of disabled parents (preferably with the same disability to prevent skewing data, let us use chair-users for example) adopt disabled children under the watchful eye of child services, or maybe put into their foster care if that is easier legally, and morally. These will be parents that actually want to adopt/have kids, not volunteers that weren’t planning on adopting otherwise. The study will collect data on the turnover rate of these children (with the desired result being a very low turnover rate in comparison to able-bodied parents), and it will also collect data on the ability of wheel chair users to raise children, killing two birds with one stone.
If this model were to be used with parents of varying disabilities, it would prove itself very useful in advocating the parenthood of the disabled, as well as getting more children out of orphanages. It could even later be applied on an international level. If a country such as China, which discriminates against chair users, were to be given a report that the parent in question has already successfully adopted a child and is able to effectively raise children, perhaps they would be ease up with their anti-disability adoption rules. For this to ever be a tangible goal The United States must first make the necessary changes not only in their adoption system but the attitudes of the citizen of the country, which will take the most time even with substantiated evidence from any future study.
The main questions my research has left me with is whether or not such a study would even be allowed to take place within the United States, and if it was allowed, would it be with a large enough sample size to determine whatever evidence found to be conclusive? If these studies were allowed to take place, and they did in fact prove that disabled parents are capable of raising an adopted child as well as having a lesser turnover rate when adopting disabled children versus able-bodied parents would it change the public’s attitude towards disabled parent adoption? If anything, through raising awareness of these discriminatory practices, perhaps changes could be made in the world of adoption.