Adoption, International | Summary: Should couples be banned from adopting children overseas? | | With the ongoing media coverage of ill-treated of children in Chinese and Romanian orphanages and the increasing numbers of infertile couples in the developed world international adoption appears to solve two problems at once. However recently Romania has stopped all international adoptions amid claims of corruption and human trafficking. Similar stories have clouded adoptions from Guatemala. Despite these difficulties international adoptions by US citizens have tripled in the past 5 years and legislation has been passed to make it easier for these adopted children to obtain citizenship. While some children complain of a feeling of cultural dislocation, others are sent to Chinese-American summer camps and seem delighted with their new homes and dual identity. The long-term effects of such migrations are hard to predict but many opponents call for more efforts to be made to house children in their country of birth, with proper support for domestic orphanages and adoption schemes. |

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Pros | Cons |

| | | International adoption removes children from the culture into which they were born. Often this causes a sense of dislocation as the child grows older because the do not feel fully a part of their adopted culture nor the culture of the country into which they were born. These feelings can be exacerbated by racial or ethnic distinctions. | | Whatever maybe lost culturally is more than made up for by the benefits of growing up in a secure and loving environment rather than an ‘institutional’ setting. Many parents go to great lengths to learn about the culture of their child’s birth country giving the child the advantage of learning about two cultures as it grows up. With the growth of multicultural societies in most countries many children having