Adoption:-

Different jurisdictions have varying laws on adoption and post-adoption. Some practice confidential or adoption, preventing further contact between the adopted person and the biological parents, while others have varying degrees of adoption, which may allow such contact. However, an underreported fact is that open adoptions are not legally enforceable agreements in many jurisdictions[1]. I.e., an open adoption may be closed at any time for any reason.

Some biological parents involuntarily lose their parental rights. This usually occurs when the children are placed in foster care because they were abused, neglected or abandoned. Eventually, if the parents cannot resolve the problems that caused or contributed to the harm caused to their children (such as alcohol or drug abuse), a court may terminate their parental rights and the children may then be adopted.

Only a small percentage of adopted children are those orphaned because of the death of their biological parents.

In some cases, parents' rights have been terminated when their ethnic or cultural group has been deemed unfit by the controlling government. Aboriginal Peoples in Australia were affected by such policies, as were Native Americans in the United States and Canada. Moreover, unwed mothers in many countries still are often pressured or forced by families, religious bodies or governments into relinquishing their children for adoption. These practices of the past have become emotionally-charged social and political issues in recent years.

In some countries, applications must be made to a state agency or agencies responsible for adoption. There may also be private, licensed adoption agencies, who may operate either on a commercial or non-profit basis. Agencies may operate only domestically, or may offer international adoptions, or may facilitate both. Some jurisdictions allow lawyers to arrange private adoptions, and some allow private facilitators to operate.

On applying to adopt, the potential adoptive parent(s) will generally be assessed for suitability. This can take the form of a home study, interviews, and financial, medical and criminal record checks. In some jurisdictions, such studies must be carried out by an independent or state authority, while in others, they can be carried out by the adoption agency itself. A pre-adoption course may also be required.

Infants are more commonly sought than toddlers or older children, and many adoptive parents seek to adopt children of the same race. As a result, governments, as well as agencies, actively seek families who are interested in adopting older children and children with special needs.

Where there are charges for adoption there is often controversy, even in the case of non-profit agencies. Regulations may also specify to whom payments may or may not be made, e.g., in some jurisdictions, no money may be paid to a birth mother above her medical expenses.

International adoptions tend to be more expensive and often incur additional costs, as the adoptive parent(s) may be required to travel to the source country. Translation fees will also apply to legal documents.

Preserving an adopted child's heritage has become a central issue in adoption over the last fifteen years. It is often assumed that adopting babies at a very young age (1-2 months) bears no emotional consequences for the child. In the past, many adoption professionals believed that because most people have no recollection of their own birth, an adopted baby would not have a childhood any different than if he or she were raised by natural parents. However, while some adoptees do not feel that adoption has raised any special problems or difficulties for them, others report that adoption has posed certain challenges. Some adoptees report that that they were made to feel - consciously or not - as if they should forever 'be grateful' to have been 'chosen'. Others report that they were told they were "special," but soon came to realize that people are not motivated to adopt by any perception that adopted children are preferable to biological children. Still others report being told that "your mother gave you to us because she loved you", but soon became aware that in closed adoptions, the adoptive parents and the legal system both assume that the birth parents no longer wish to see the child. This leads some adopted people to wonder whether their biological parents ever loved them, or whether their adoptive parents can be trusted to tell the truth. This kind of ambiguity in adoption, along with the strongly emotionally charged nature of the subject, can make it difficult for adoptees to feel free to discuss their own issues honestly, for fear of being ungrateful, hurting their adoptive parents' feelings, raising subjects they sense are taboo (such as the adoptive parents' true reasons for adopting, especially if this involves infertility) or incurring rejection.

Recent work on openness in adoption has attempted to address these issues. Researchers such as Joyce Maguire Pavao and others have advised all three sides of the adoption triad (birthparents, adoptive parents, and adoptees) on how to establish healthy relationships, and make it easier for adopted people to discuss their feelings and maintain meaningful contact with both genetic and adoptive families. These efforts are relatively recent,

and full openness, while on the upswing, is still not the norm in adoption.

International adoptees face additional challenges. It has been argued that children adopted through international adoptions are best served when adoptive families commit to integrating the child's birth nation cultures, traditions, stories, languages and relationships. Some countries now require adoptive parents to keep the birth names of their adoptive children, and many adoptive parents choose to do this as it makes sense in helping their child develop a strong sense of self. This can be very difficult to do in a meaningful way, especially for adoptive families who are not themselves experienced cross-culturally.

Another issue for prospective adoptive parents to be aware of is reactive attachment disorder (RAD). Many children, especially those beyond infancy in system care (e.g. foster, orphanage), domestic or foreign, develop this disorder due to the early trauma of loss, and/or lack of a primary caregiver.

For all adopted people in adoptions where information about the family of origin is withheld, secrecy may disrupt the process of forming an identity. Family concerns regarding genealogy can be a source of confusion .

Adoption is problematic for some birthparents. When a parent chooses to place the child with adoptive parents, the process of separation can be difficult for all parties. Those emotional difficulties may carry on for many years past the date of the adoption, with families of origin missing and longing for the children they have placed.

Adoption may also pose lifelong difficulties for adoptive parents. Charting a course among the various schools of thought about openness, maintaining a child's connection to his or her family of origin, answering a child's difficult questions, and helping a child deal with birthparents who may not maintain regular contact are all issues that adoptive families may struggle with. For anyone involved in adoption--birthparent, adoptive parent or adoptee--there are no hard and fast rules about how to build appropriate relationships that are in the child's best interest.

Two important influences on the reform of voluntary infant adoption have been Nancy Verrier and Florence Fischer. Verrier describes the "primal wound" as the "devastation which the infant feels because of separation from its natural mother. It is the deep and consequential feeling of abandonment which the baby adoptee feels after the adoption and which continues for the rest of his life."

In some cases, however, the separation of the parent/child bond is necessary to protect the child. For children who have been neglected or abused, adoption is often necessary to ensure stability and the opportunity to bond with a new family in an emotionally healthy way. Where, in the past, neglected or abused children were often kept in foster care for many years while birthparents attempted to resolve issues of addition, domestic violence, or mental illness, new theories of social work now encourage government agencies to move quickly to free such children for adoption and to find them new, permanent homes. This new philosophy is enshrined in the United States in the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, a law aimed at preventing foster care drift. By keeping children from bouncing from foster home to foster home, state agencies now hope to preserve children's abilities to trust and attach, and hence to maintain and improve their mental health.

• The belief that adoption is not a legitimate way to build a family
  
  
• The belief that birthing children is always preferable to adopting
  
  
• The belief that making an adoption plan is never a preferable option for birth mothers who are unable or choose not to raise their children
  
  

In Korean culture, adoption almost always occurs when another family member (sibling or cousin) gives a male child to the first-born male heir of the family. Adoptions outside the family are rare. This is also true to varying degrees in other Asian societies.

On the other hand, in many African cultures, children are regularly exchanged among families for the purpose of adoption. By placing a child in another family's home, the birth family seeks to create enduring ties with the family that is now rearing the child. The placing family may receive another child from that family, or from another. Like the reciprocal transfer of brides from one family to another, these adoptive placements are meant to create enduring connections and social solidarity among families and lineages.