Those couples or individuals who prefer international
adoption discover that the availability of children and the
cost involved shifts from country to country, depending on
political, economic, and legal issues. Regulations in the
United States as well as in the country of the child’s origin
and in international umbrella agencies all contribute to the
complicated procedures facing those applying to adopt.
Nevertheless, a growing number of children are adopted
through these routes. Those who choose international adoption
to avoid the risk of legal challenges or interference from
the birth parents overlook the psychological need of adopted
children to know their heritage. Many young adults adopted
from Asia, Europe, and South America have returned to seek
their biological families in an attempt to resolve their ethnic,
racial, and cultural identity.
Another revolutionary development in the adoption
field is its connection with alternative reproductive techniques.
Adult children who have learned they were conceived
by donor insemination have organized a world wide
movement, still small in number, to gain the right to have
identifying information about their fathers. They refer to
themselves as “in utero adoptees.” Their initiative has brought
about a growing acceptance of the right to access of identifying
information in both egg and sperm donations. The
American Adoption Congress recognizes donor offspring as
adoptees, and advocates opening their records, as well as
promoting future openness in all alternative family building
methods. Embryo adoptions are being seriously considered
as an alternative, due to the surplus of fertilized embryos no
longer needed by couples. Rather than defrost and destroy
them, a few agencies are encouraging donation of these
embryos to infertile couples.
Researchers have not yet determined what the psychological
effects will be on children born to parents to whom
they are not genetically related when they learn of their high
tech origins. One thing is certain: that they will ask the same
question that legions of adoptees since Oedipus have struggled
with: “Who Am I?”