Ryan and Sara Hall adopt 4 Ethiopian Daughters

Vita wrote:

xenophobe wrote:

I agree 100% with your sentiment. Alternatively, adopting an infant can avoid a lot of the potential behavioral issues by providing a stable household early enough. Domestic adoption may become even more of an important civic duty if conservatives get their way and dismantle PP / Roe vs Wade.

FYI: Since Roe v. Wade (January 1973), out-of-wedlock births have not decreased but have skyrocketed. The following paragraph is from a paper published in 1996 by George A. Ackerlof, who shared the Nobel prize in Economics in 2001, and his wife, Janet L. Yellen, Chair of the board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve:

"Since 1970, out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared. In 1965, 24 percent of black infants and 3.1 percent of white infants were born to single mothers. By 1990 the rates had risen to 64 percent for black infants, 18 percent for whites. Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families. If we have learned any policy lesson well over the past 25 years, it is that for children living in single-parent homes, the odds of living in poverty are great. The policy implications of the increase in out-of-wedlock births are staggering."

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/1996/08/childrenfamilies-akerlof

(Both Ackerlof and Yellen have described themselves as supporters of legal abortion, by the way.) Fast-forward to today's rate: about 41% of births in the USA are to unmarried women, despite a high abortion rate. I myself was born in the Bronx in New York City. In 2012, the place of my birth had an out-of-wedlock birth rate of about 67% on top of a roughly 48% abortion rate.

https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/chac/birth/b18_58.htm

Ackerlof and Yellen argue that the widespread availability of artificial contraceptives and direct abortion disarmed the shotgun marriage, causing an increase in out-of-wedlock births and an increase in poverty among women and children.

regular poster wrote:

notanexpert wrote:

fair question - I think there are few healthy american kids to adopt - certainly not whole families.

American kids up for adoption are often messed up in some major way - not so for 3rd worlders.

I need to correct some of you some of your notions regarding domestic adoption that, from my experience and research, are just untrue.

a) yes, a certain % of children given up for adoption domestically did have moms abusing drugs or alcohol, which can of course result in developmental or health problems.

b) however, plenty of "3rd world" children given up for adoption are either in the same boat (moms that had substance abuse issues), or often worse: they were stuck in some orphanage for months to years with very little love and attention and nutrition, which seems to really cause issues later on (this is often true with some Eastern European adoptions). True of some Asian adoption too. Ethiopia does have a better track record of caring for little ones put in orphanages. This is one reason it has become a more popular place to adopt from.

c) the majority of domestic adoptions, the kids are not "messed up in some major way." Again, I would say the %'s are higher with foreign adoptions.

d) In my neighborhood alone I literally know 10 kids that were adopted domestically. Each and every one seems healthy, well adjusted, and happy.

e) I have an adopted child. The process was very smooth and easy. We had to travel twice across the country, but I would much prefer that to have to travel 1/2 way across the globe and spend weeks in a 3rd world country. (yes, such a visit could be rewarding too, but I am only focusing here on the "easy" factor)

f) we had our child from day 1 (well, she spent a few days in the hospital). It is my understanding that foreign adoptions usually involved at least a few months in an orphanage of some sort.

FYI: this is not a moral judgement on domestic vs foreign adoptions in any way. Only trying to correct some misconceptions about the differences, and the supposed difficulties surrounding domestic adoption. my understanding is that domestic is often easier/more hassle free/kids are healthier than foreign adoptions at this point in time (at one point in time it might have been different)

Vita wrote:

xenophobe wrote:

I agree 100% with your sentiment. Alternatively, adopting an infant can avoid a lot of the potential behavioral issues by providing a stable household early enough. Domestic adoption may become even more of an important civic duty if conservatives get their way and dismantle PP / Roe vs Wade.

FYI: Since Roe v. Wade (January 1973), out-of-wedlock births have not decreased but have skyrocketed. The following paragraph is from a paper published in 1996 by George A. Ackerlof, who shared the Nobel prize in Economics in 2001, and his wife, Janet L. Yellen, Chair of the board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve:

"Since 1970, out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared. In 1965, 24 percent of black infants and 3.1 percent of white infants were born to single mothers. By 1990 the rates had risen to 64 percent for black infants, 18 percent for whites. Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families. If we have learned any policy lesson well over the past 25 years, it is that for children living in single-parent homes, the odds of living in poverty are great. The policy implications of the increase in out-of-wedlock births are staggering."

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/1996/08/childrenfamilies-akerlof

(Both Ackerlof and Yellen have described themselves as supporters of legal abortion, by the way.) Fast-forward to today's rate: about 41% of births in the USA are to unmarried women, despite a high abortion rate. I myself was born in the Bronx in New York City. In 2012, the place of my birth had an out-of-wedlock birth rate of about 67% on top of a roughly 48% abortion rate.

https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/chac/birth/b18_58.htm

Ackerlof and Yellen argue that the widespread availability of artificial contraceptives and direct abortion disarmed the shotgun marriage, causing an increase in out-of-wedlock births and an increase in among women and children.

Randy Oldman wrote:

Vita wrote:

FYI: Since Roe v. Wade (January 1973), out-of-wedlock births have not decreased but have skyrocketed. The following paragraph is from a paper published in 1996 by George A. Ackerlof, who shared the Nobel prize in Economics in 2001, and his wife, Janet L. Yellen, Chair of the board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve:

"Since 1970, out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared. In 1965, 24 percent of black infants and 3.1 percent of white infants were born to single mothers. By 1990 the rates had risen to 64 percent for black infants, 18 percent for whites. Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families. If we have learned any policy lesson well over the past 25 years, it is that for children living in single-parent homes, the odds of living in poverty are great. The policy implications of the increase in out-of-wedlock births are staggering."

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/1996/08/childrenfamilies-akerlof

(Both Ackerlof and Yellen have described themselves as supporters of legal abortion, by the way.) Fast-forward to today's rate: about 41% of births in the USA are to unmarried women, despite a high abortion rate. I myself was born in the Bronx in New York City. In 2012, the place of my birth had an out-of-wedlock birth rate of about 67% on top of a roughly 48% abortion rate.

https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/chac/birth/b18_58.htm

Ackerlof and Yellen argue that the widespread availability of artificial contraceptives and direct abortion disarmed the shotgun marriage, causing an increase in out-of-wedlock births and an increase in among women and children.

The assumption that those babies were born to single mothers does not mean that those mothers wee not in stable relationships.

9% of unmarried mothers are live with a partner of the opposite sex, which was far from the case in the 1970s

Vita wrote:

Randy Oldman wrote:

The assumption that those babies were born to single mothers does not mean that those mothers wee not in stable relationships.

9% of unmarried mothers are live with a partner of the opposite sex, which was far from the case in the 1970s

Hi Randy,

Cohabitation has increased, and I think that is your point. I don't know for sure but I believe that unmarried parents that cohabit are still less stable than married parents. I understand that couples that cohabit before marriage and then marry are significantly more likely to divorce than married couples that did not cohabit before marriage and, further, that serial cohabitors (people who have lived unmarried with multiple partners consecutively) who then marry are most likely of all to divorce.

Sociologists Wendy Manning and Jessica Cohen found that for marriages formed since the mid-1990s, living together before marriage did not raise the risk of divorce. In fact, for a minority of women with higher than average risks of divorce – women with a premarital birth, women raised in single or stepparent families, or women who had had more than the median number of sex partners – living together while engaged was actually more protective against divorce than moving directly into marriage.

[Arielle Kuperberg at The University of North Carolina found

[quote]when couples are compared by the age at which they move in together and start taking on the roles associated with marriage, there is no difference in divorce rates between couples that lived together before marriage and those that didn’t.

It turns out that cohabitation doesn’t cause divorce and probably never did. What leads to divorce is when people move in with someone – with or without a marriage license – before they have the maturity and experience to choose compatible partners and to conduct themselves in ways that can sustain a long-term relationship.

Early entry into marriage or cohabitation, especially prior to age 23, is the critical risk factor for divorce.