When parents decide to adopt a child, they believe in their hearts that adoption is forever. In most cases, this is in fact true. Through adoption, children who are without parents for one reason or another are united with the adults who will become their parents. As any adoptive or biological parent knows, being a parent is forever.
Unfortunately, there have been some cases in which adoptions have been vacated. These cases are few and far between, but the fact that they have occurred at all makes the topic an important one for adoptive families and their adopted children. Adoptions have been reversed, or vacated, in situations where reversing the adoption serves the best interests of the child. There have also been cases in which adoptions have been reversed because the parents are no longer able to care for the child. It is important to distinguish situations in which parents truly cannot take care of a child due to serious injury, disability, or some other circumstance, and situations in which parents are capable of caring for the child yet wish to be absolved of the responsibility of doing so.
There is a case in New York which is being watched closely by everyone whose lives are touched by adoption, from adoptive families and pre-adoptive parents, to adoption agencies, adoption attorneys, and judges across the nation. Russian families, adoption workers, and government officials are also closely following the case, because it involves children who were adopted from Russia. A couple who adopted two Russian children at the ages of six and eight seeks to have both of the adoptions overturned because the children have serious psychiatric and medical problems that were not disclosed to them at any point during the adoption process. The couple even believes that one of the children, who the adoption agencies had represented as being siblings, is not even an actual sibling. In short, they are seeking to have the adoptions overturned because they believe that they were defrauded.
The New York case is important for a number of reasons. The first reason is that it weighs on the issue of how permanent adoptions are and under which circumstances they can be reversed. The second important issue is whether adoption agencies are responsible for disclosing physical and mental health issues that may be present in the children that they are placing for adoption. This issue is referred to by many people as the “warranty” issue, because if the court decides that the adoption agencies had a duty to inform the parents of specific mental or physical health information prior to the adoption, adoption agencies would have a hard time making the types of “warranties” that they would have to make under such precedent. Presently, adoption agencies must supply prospective adoptive parents with as much information about the children as they can, but information is often scare and birth parents may not have much time to observe the children before they are expected to finalize the adoption and take them home.
While the current controversy in New York may eventually affect both the permanency of adoptions and the obligations of adoption agencies, the overwhelming majority of adoptions are forever. If you are planning to adopt a child, call Kansas Adoption Attorney Thomas McDowell now at (316) 269-0746 today to arrange an initial consultation.
