adoption :: essays research papers

adoption adoption, act by which the legal relation of pargonnt and boor is created. word sense was recognized by Roman law but non by common law. Statutes first introduced adoption into U.S. law in the mid-19th cent., and straightaway it is allowed in all states of the United States and in Great Britain. Adoption is largely a judicial proceeding, requiring a hearing before a judge. Adoption statutes usually provide that the consent of the parents or guardian of the electric s strikerand that of the chela, if supra a certain agemust be obtained. An adopted child generally assumes the rights and duties of a natural legitimate child. Similarly, the rights and duties accompanying natural birth generally accompany adoptive parenthood (e.g., the right of custody and the responsibility of support). The natural parents have no right to control an adopted child, nor have they any duties toward it, but in some(prenominal) states the child does not hurt the right to inherit from them. In many cases children are adopted by relatives. Many states now permit adoption by unmarried adults some allow adoption by homosexual couples. Most adoptions are of the equivalent race. Transracial adoptions are controversial, pitting issues of culture and heritage against the need of a child for a stable parent-child relationship as early in emotional state as possible, regardless of race. The Multiethnic Placement Act (1994) made it embezzled for U.S. states to hold up adoptions solely in order to match racial or ethnic background of the child.In adoption by unrelated adults, the courts have traditionally attempted to ease adjustment to the adoptive family and value the privacy of the (often unwed) mother by maintaining secrecy regarding the childs birth parents. Since the 1970s, however, a increase number of adopted children have attempted to identify their birth parents, and wanton adoption, in which adoptive and birth parents maintain a relationship, has become more tha n accepted. Questions of parental rights and where these stand vis--vis the rights and best interests of the child have also been highlighted in cases in which the courts tranferred custody of adopted or fostered children to birth parents who had previously minded(p) them up.Many children are adopted through public or offstage agencies, but a growing number are adopted through private placement, in which the prospective adoptive parents advertise for or are otherwise put into contact with a birth mother, usually with the assistant of a lawyer who is familiar with the process and the legal requirements of the individual states.