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Ethics

Is inter-country adoption immoral? (I'm a college senior doing an independent study on Korean transnational adoption and the Korean diaspora.)
Accepted:
April 17, 2014

Comments

Oliver Leaman
April 18, 2014 (changed April 18, 2014) Permalink

I don't see why it should be. Like inter-ethnic adoption, it might be better for someone to be adopted by someone more like them, but then it might not be also. If there is no alternative, it seems to me to be often better than leaving the child where it is.Presumably the new parents would have to think about how far they want to involve the child in the original culture of the country they come from, but that is about it.

One of the curious aspects of inter-country and inter-ethnic adoption is that it is often regarded with suspicion by people who have no problems with inter-racial dating, or marriage, and this seems strange. The difference of course is that in one case the child is not able to give consent, and in the other the potential partners can, but the child can always decide what attitude he or she is to take to their origins later on. If they are not adopted it may sadly be the case that often there is no later on at all.

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