Examining the Intersection of Ethics and Adoption

Ethics are implicitly embedded in nearly every aspect of adoption. They are at the heart of our professional practice – including, but not exclusive to, educators, medical practitioners, lawyers, mental health providers, adoption advocates, researchers, and genetic counselors. Since Babb’s (1999) book on Ethics in American Adoption, and Freundlich’s (2000; 2001) four-volume series on Adoption and Ethics, little has been written with an explicit focus on ethics in adoption. Thus, the aim of this special issue was to focus on broadening our knowledge of how ethics explicitly intersects with adoption.

Toward this end, in this special issue we set out to expand our knowledge of ethics and adoption by considering how professional disciplines’ (e.g., social work, marriage and family therapy, psychology, medical, etc.) codes of ethics help to navigate practice. Some examples of this practice may include guiding or informing the assessment and training of prospective adoptive parents; the matching and placement processes; working with expectant parents in options counseling and/or termination of parental rights; navigating disruptions/dissolutions; transracial and transnational adoptions; and clinical work. We also sought to consider how ethical theories or ethical decision-making models are guiding and informing the use of technology (i.e. social media) in adoption search and reunion practices, and the use of mass, consumer genetic testing for various purposes (e.g., searching, medical information, ethnic validation). And finally, we wanted to better understand the potential conflicts of interest when representing more than one party (e.g., adoptee, expectant parent, prospective adoptive parents) in a given context.

It cannot go unmentioned that at the time of writing this introduction, the world is calibrating its response to two global pandemics in which ethics plays a central role: Covid-19 and systemic racism. Additionally, recent public outrage related to adoptive parents using unregulated custody transfers or dissolving their adoptions of children with disabilities has prompted a call for the greater scrutiny of ethics in adoption. This special issue provides a foundation for future research that explicitly examines the intersection of ethics and adoption during these profound times.

The five selected articles in this special issue only begin to address some of our initially posed questions when planning this issue. In the article, “Why Moral Theories Matter: A Review of Ethics and the Adoption Literature,” Bibiana D. Koh and Frederic G. Reamer describe the findings of a systematic review of the explicit inclusion of ethical theories in adoption literature. Their review is grounded in the argument that our values (as adoption professionals) are embedded in moral theories, and directly connected to our use of self in adoption work. The authors found that most of the ethics-related discussion in adoption literature references codes of ethics or professional standards, and few (22%) explicitly discussed moral theory. Koh and Reamer provide a roadmap for ways adoption professionals and scholars can incorporate ethical frameworks and moral theory – including virtue ethics, ethics of care, and Confucian perspectives – to enhance their adoption work.

Two of the articles in this special issue utilize a case study approach to examine the intersection of ethics and adoption. In the article, “The Columbian Adoption House: A Case Study,” Susan Branco utilizes an intercountry explanatory case study to examine ethical issues in the context of possible fraud and corruption. Branco specifically frames her study in Beauchamp and Childress (2019) well-known bioethics framework because they are implicitly embedded in – and closely aligned with – the American Counseling Associations (ACA) Code of Ethics. Branco also considers how pre-adoption narratives – or the lack thereof – contribute to intercountry adoptees’ identify development. Findings from Branco’s qualitative analysis of adult adoptees’ adoption narratives revealed three themes: (1) discrepancy discovery, (2) searching for answers and, (3) seeking social justice. Branco considers these findings with respect to important clinical and narrative implications for transnational, intercountry adoptees.

In the article, “Ethical Lawyering in Adoption: Centering the Child in Adoption Law,” Malinda Seymore takes a unique approach to ethical lawyering by arguing for the importance of caring for and attending to the important relationships in the adoption kinship network. Seymour’s application of Tronto’s ethics of care as an alternative to traditional lawyering ethics is particularly salient at a time when we are all asked to consider caring for ourselves and those in our communities. Thus, this explicit application of care ethics to the adoption kinship network is timely. Drawing from a Missouri case study, Seymour examines key legal-ethical issues in adoption and integrates the American Bar Associations’ Model Rules of Professional Conduct. This article underscores both the importance of adoption-competency in the legal profession and the ethics of care in a collaborative, child-centered approach to adoption law.

In the article, “Adoption Ethics in a Digital World: Challenges and Best Practices,” Frederic G. Reamer and Deborah Siegel discuss the importance of centering ethics in the growing use of information and communications technology. The use of digital technologies by adoptees, adoptive and birth parents, and adoption professionals is growing and has both benefits and challenges for communication and practice. Reamer and Siegel discuss these benefits and challenges in the context of adoption matching, openness, counseling, unregulated custody transfers (also referred to as “rehoming), and use of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing. In addition, the authors provide guidance for helping practitioners and adoptive/birth families consider several areas where ethics are crucial including privacy and confidentiality, informed consent, boundaries and dual relationships, fraud and deception, and self-determination.

In the article, “Ethical Considerations in the Use of Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing for Adopted Persons,” Thomas May and Stephanie M. Fullerton examine ethical issues regarding genetic testing. May & Fullerton specifically focus on Beauchamp and Childress (2019) bioethical concepts of beneficence and non-maleficence for adopted persons who may undergo genetic testing. A discussion on the importance of seeking help in interpreting the direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing results from trained genetic counselors follows. As May & Fullerton illustrate in the article, an understanding of DTC genetic testing risks and benefits are critical to adoptees and genetic counselors working with adoption communities.

Taken together, the collection of articles in this special issue expands our understanding of how ethics is explicitly intertwined with adoption. The articles in this special issue start important conversations – particularly ones that we need to have during these unprecedented times. We look to the strength of adoption researchers to continue to explicitly examine salient ethical issues in the wide-ranging and interdisciplinary field of adoption.

The guest editors for this special issue are Bibiana D. Koh, PhD, Associate Professor of Social Work and Batalden Scholar in Applied Ethics at Augsburg University, and JaeRan Kim, PhD, Assistant Professor of Social Work and Criminal Justice at the University of Washington, Tacoma. Dr. Koh’s current research focuses on the decolonization of ethics in a two-pronged approach: (a) the consideration of alternatives to modern, Western ethical theories such as Buddhist and Confucian ethics and, (b) the development of an ethical deliberation framework that uses intersectionality as a heuristic. Dr. Kim’s research focuses on several dimensions influencing the well-being of adoptees including race, culture, and disability, and the adoption discontinuity experiences of adoptive parents and adoptees.