I just finished reading John Seabrook’s article in the New Yorker, “The Last Babylift,” which recounted his experiences adopting a child from Haiti. Seabrook, who is married, in his fifties, and already has a biological (I think) child, is set after much bureaucratic difficulty to bring home a child from Haiti. When the earthquake hits, however, his domestic plans are immediately derailed, both by the chaos left by the quake (the offices where most adoption approvals were kept by the government was destroyed), but also by the unwanted zeal of Americans desirous to help save Haiti’s little ones:
In the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti on January 12th, many Americans inquired about adopting Haitian orphans….International adoption agencies, adoption advocacy groups, and government Web sites were overwhelmed by calls and e-mails. “I would love to take about twenty or more kids in my home,” someone wrote on the U.S. State Department Web site. “I have plenty of room.” Queen Latifah, appearing on the “Today” show, said, “I want to just go and get some of them babies. If you got the hookup, please get me a couple of Haitian kids.”
Seabrook uses these callow examples to animate the ways in which his personal story fit into the larger–and morally ambiguous–world of international adoptions:
The desire to adopt needy children from other parts of the world, especially during times of crisis, is not an exclusively American impulse, but it draws together several threads in our national character. It combines an evangelical zeal to save the lost, a humanitarian spirit, and the love of a sensible idea: by bringing childless families together with orphans, international adoption solves two problems with a single stroke.
Those “American impulses” that Seabrook describes are what provide the inner conflict in this story. International adoptions from impoverished nations into wealthy ones represent a complex ethical and moral picture. Does the broader transactional nature of the adoptions–rich white folk in country A buying the offspring of poor dark-skinned folk from country B–outweigh the impact of the smaller-scale emotional and human good that comes from the adoption? What I mean is, in most cases, these adoptions are a positive outcome for the child, the adoptive parents, and perhaps even for the biological parents, but does this good outweigh the bad? Racism, paternalism, colonialism, all these things play into adoptions–and yet, ultimately, and in most cases (not all), needy child ends up with loving family.
Seabrook doesn’t state most of these things explicitly. But they are covered in the article. It is a fine read and thought-provoking to boot. Go read it and tell me what you think.