Adoption questions

[deelaundry]

Hi! Just heard about this community and am very excited to join in.

I have two questions related to adoption by American parents. I've tried to do internet searches but am not getting the exact desired info. If you have sources I can go and read to get the information, that would be great as well!

1. In the first situation, a pregnant British citizen comes to the US, gives birth in the US, and then decides they want their American friend to adopt the baby. The British person will give up all parenting rights. The baby will be a US citizen given they were born here. Are there any special hoops the adopting parent will have to go through because the birth parent is not a US citizen, or is it the typical process of newborn adoption? Is there anything the British person needs to file or report in the UK since the baby is not going back to the UK? I'm thinking not but just checking.

2. In the second situation, an American wants to take in an orphaned child who is fleeing another country due to an active war. Is there any path to adoption? Sources I've seen say Americans can only foster refugees, not adopt. The child knows for sure that their parents are dead (one died before the war, one died during). This is not exactly a cross-cultural case, as the country at war is England (this is modern-day but AU obviously). It's a little bit cross-cultural, as the American is Jewish and the English child is probably affiliated with Church of England, but I don't think that will really matter.

Comments

[conuly]

1. It's an international adoption. If your characters want to do this legally, then they are going to have to talk to a lawyer who is familiar with international adoption, probably two lawyers, one for each of them.

The fact that the child is born in the USA may actually make the situation *more* complex.

This is the US government website on the subject: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/Intercountry-Adoption/Intercountry-Adoption-Country-Information/UnitedKingdom.html

2. It is not impossible. However, it is very difficult - before the child could be placed for adoption they'd want to first prove there were no relatives at all, not just no parents. And if the child's country is at war, that is naturally very difficult.

International adoption is rife with a lot of unethical behavior, so I won't say this sort of thing never happens but if the foster parents want to do the right thing then they'll want to do it by the book. That means waiting while every attempt to trace any relations or find a community member to adopt the child is exhausted. The US and the UK do not have the same culture, even though we generally speak English.

https://adoption.com/adopt-a-refugee-child/

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/magazine/afghanistan-orphan-baby-l.html (that baby was not a refugee, but it's exactly the sort of situation that laws about international adoption are supposed to prevent)

[nineveh_uk]

The US website link is really clear - fascinating to read the process! I'd add some cultural context for (1): not only is the Hague Convention in place, but voluntary surrender of newborns for adoption is extremely rare in the UK. So the local authorities charged with determining whether the baby is available for adoption in the UK, let alone the US, are not going to start off with a presumption that this is a normal, nice solution for a mother who doesn't feel able to parent. They are going to start off with the presumption that this is extremely unusual and that the desirable outcome is to enable what would usually happen in the UK, that the mother would retain the child. People, mostly women, who become pregnant in the UK, overwhelming choose between the two options of "give birth and raise the child herself, with or without a partner" or "terminate the pregnancy". Almost none are having the baby with the intention of it being then adopted. It does happen very occasionally, but you aren't going to see it as a routine thing in a sitcom storyline.

Of course, this doesn't mean you can't make this work for your story! Maybe your character is that unusual person. But to convince a UK audience, you do need to make sure you at least acknowledge that it is unusual, and there are logistics.

[mecurtin]

In addition to what conuly said above--adoption by & of Jews is a *hot button* topic. Jewish families often adopt! but we tend to be extra-scrupulous because there's a history of Jewish children being "rescued" for adoption & conversion by Christians. If the child is or might be Jewish, on the other hand, there are generally networks that will pop up to try to rescue them -- on the (historically-based) assumption that Christians won't. And these networks might help a Jewish adult who's found such a child, especially if Jews are targets in the war.

[vaznetti]

Is there anything the British person needs to file or report in the UK since the baby is not going back to the UK? I'm thinking not but just checking.

I think the answer here is almost certainly yes -- the child is born with the right to UK citizenship through at least one of its parents and that birth will need to be registered with the British government. The birth mother in the UK can avoid naming the father on the birth certificate (I'm almost certain I did have that option, at least) but in a case of adoption both parents need to be consulted. Voluntary newborn adoptions -- where the birth parents give up their claim on the child right away and the adoptive parents are chosen by them or by an agency -- are extraordinarly rare in Britain. Maybe illegal? Certainly culturally alien. Most people who adopt will adopt a child who has been taken into care by a local council (that is, by local government.)

The situation you describe looks to me (and would probably look to the Home Office) very like a surrogacy agreement. This is legal in the UK with certain restrictions. I do not think that the UK government can forbid a British citizen living abroad to enter into a surrogacy agreement, but I'm no lawyer, and the fact remains that you aren't actually describing a surrogacy. I agree with conuly that this is going to involve lawyers, probably both British and American.

[naath]

us/uk is more cross cultural than you appear to think, and it is a long way for relatives/friends to travel even absent war, which the law probably cares about. In the uk 'my mate can adopt my baby' is basically unknown frex.

[hamatebones]

Something to consider is when/where your AU diverged from reality. There WAS a time when international adoption was simpler in the US -- it progressively got more complicated as people got more thoughtful about the circumstances of those "orphaned" children and as technology improved for finding missing relatives. The 1960s-70s attitude towards young children as a blank slate who would just turn into whatever they were raised as contributed as well.

Let us not say, however, that people don't still hold those attitudes, and try to manipulate the system to get what they want. Here's a recent case of a US Marine attorney -- and a hardcore evangelical Christian -- who swindled Afghan parents out of their child, and got at least one judge to agree that the child "deserved" better than her actual parents could provide. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-u-s-marine-used-political-connections-and-courts-to-adopt-an-afghan-baby-the-family-raising-her-didnt-know-until-she-was-taken) The case is ongoing, but now that people are paying attention, that dude is going to lose, (the adoption was voided as of March this year) and might yet go to prison for kidnapping.

[thekumquat]

The time of divergence is also relevant to the UK. Children growing up thinking their mother was actually their older sister was still possible in the 1950s when many babies were born at home, ditto some casual adoptions.

But adoption of newborn babies pretty much died out by 1980 thanks to access to contraception and abortion - certainly by the 1990s when the internet came along, there was a huge cultural gulf between the UK and the US. Adopting a (healthy, white) baby was still possible in the US, but in the UK adoptions were almost exclusively of older children (plus adoption by stepparents), who had been taken into care by the local authority 'the council', ie local government's Social Services.

Unless the scenario is one where access to contraception and abortion have been hugely limited, the concept of someone getting that far in pregnancy then deciding she wants to give the baby away, doesn't really compute. It sounds more like a surrogacy arragement - possibly because surrogacy in the UK is not allowed to be paid for?