The book I read for my book review is called A Family of
Choice: A Gay Man’s Story of International Adoption by Paul Hampsch. The
book is a memoir of Paul’s international adoption/single parent adoption in
Ukraine. Paul is a gay man and has a partner named Domenic. After a long and
stressful adoption process he managed to adopt two “healthy” sons, named Paul
Jr. and Andrew.
In class, we briefly talked about international adoption.
Paul’s international adoption consisted of finding an adoption agency that
specialize and foreign adoption and then he has to do a home study to see if he
is fit to be a father. Unfortunately, since he is gay his options are very
limited. Even the fact that he was a man also plays a role. During the time of
his adoption only two countries was available to an unmarried man which was Guatemala
and Ukraine.
Ethical issue that Paul provided was the best interest of
the child. Evidently, many orphanages in Ukraine do not have the necessity to
raise the orphans into fully healthy children until someone adopt them. They
lack medical supplies so they have to sterilize used medical equipment for
further usage, does not have enough food for the orphans, do not have proper clothing
(mismatched shoes or worn out shoes), etc. Since Paul was capable of adopting
two sons he provided the best interest of this child because he can provide that
necessity for the children to be develop into healthy adults. Another ethical issue
was that directors often used the orphans as a mere means. They would get
compensated for the sales of these children and they were also known as “director’s
commodities” (Hampsch, 2009, pg. 44). It also mentioned that if the demands of
the director’s are not met they would rather have the child starve of hunger
than give it to loving and caring families (Hampsch, 2009, 42). I personally
think it is unfair for these children to be born into a country where they lack
the support to be developed into sufficient children and how they are being
used for the selfishness act of the directors for their own personal gain.
Chia C.
Book Review Reply:
ReplyDeleteChia, I thought your book sounded very interesting after your presentation today. One thing that I thought of after hearing your presentation was the ethical dilemma that gay and lesbian couples face when it comes to adoption, deception. I mentioned this topic in a previous blog post. When Phil came to talk to us about gay and lesbian adoption he mentioned that couples have to hide their sexual orientation in order to adopt a child. This was the case in your book as well. I just thought that it would be interesting to research the prevalence of this in international adoption and/or what the implications are to this in regards to international relations.
Another topic that I thought of after listening to your presentation, which could relate to the above research and could be the argument for gay and lesbian’s deceiving countries about their sexual orientations. After hearing about the conditions that these children had to endure in these children’s homes in the Ukraine, it could be considered a blessing for these children that these gay and lesbian couples and individuals have the resources and devotion to adopt a child. Without these couple who knows what the fate of these children would be. The parent in your story was even willing to adopt a child that had a disability of some kind. By how you explained the adoption processes for this country, it is even more amazing because the future for their “sick” children seem pretty bleak. So you could argue that the deception that these gay and lesbian couples do, could be overlooked because by the couple adopting these children they provide a loving, secure home. These couples are looking out for the best interest of the child. Giving them a life they probably never could have in their native countries.
Lisa R.