How to arrange an ethical adoption

Dear First Mother Forum:

My spouse and I are moving forward with plans to adopt in the U.S. We are hoping for an infant adoption, using a non-profit agency with many years of experience. The agency only does open adoptions, which is what we want. The open adoption agreement would be legally enforceable, and we have no intention of betraying it in any event.

I am looking for resources/information that will help us ensure, to the fullest extent possible, that we (and our agency) are respecting the rights, concerns, perspectives, and needs of the birthparents and adopted children. And I want to make sure we solicit those resources not just from people who are cheerleaders for adoption, but also from people who are critics of the adoption system. That's why I'm writing you.

Also I noticed that you used the word "real" in the tagline for First Mother Forum.  Does that necessarily mean, in your view,

'Open' adoption letters released in Texas...with redactions

Protesting at a Gladney event--in Texas 

Boxes and boxes of letters from first mothers to the adoptive families and vice versa that were left unattended when a major San Antonio agency shut down in 2012 will be forwarded to the people to whom they were intended, the state of Texas announced yesterday. However, though the agency, Adoption Services Associates, had promised "open adoption" to the unsuspecting and naive women who gave up their babies through ASA, all the identifying information in the letters will be blacked out.

We reported earlier a reputable agency in San Antonio, Abrazo (that only handles fully open adoptions), had stepped in and tried to help the first mothers who counted on continuing

When an agency promises 'semi-open' adoption, look elsewhere

Lorraine

What is wrong with a "semi-open" adoption?

Just about everything.

As a birth mother, you are at the mercy not only of the agency, and its commitment to keeping the adoption semi-closed--let's be frank, that's what it is--but also at the mercy of the adoptive parents to keep up contact. If they do not want to, birth/first parents have no recourse through the legal system in most states to keep the information channels open. Whenever we write about this travesty, we get more comments from first mothers who were lied to by adopters, and whose contact with them ended without warning.