von Hilbrand Wester, adopted from South Korea to the Netherlands; founder of Adoptee Foster Coaching (AFC); awarded the Orden von Oranien-Nassau for his contributions to the Netherlands adoptee community. The original text in Dutch Hier.
#Adoption is not a universal right, but it is a Western right.
If adoption is really and essentially good, then we must allow adoptions in and from all countries. The principles for adopting children (social, economic, medical, ideological, psychological, (post) Christian, scientific and political motives, etc.,) must then be applicable and legally valid for everyone. Adoption must then become part of a universal right anywhere, and for anyone in the world.
Then all prospective adoptive parents can receive financial and fiscal support from all governments in their countries. As for years the costs of adoption were tax deductible in the Netherlands and in the USA where so-called adoption loans exist. Some in the Netherlands took out a private loan from banks or were financially sponsored by family members to be able to adopt children from mothers who were financially struggling.
Back to the international advice. We can best categorise adoptions as part of foreign relations. We can then finally see adoption as an exclusive form of development cooperation and as an exclusive form of migration, without the children’s parents, of course. Then it can finally be transferred to ministries of foreign affairs, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
Maybe a fun fact, adoption in South Korea used to be managed by the Ministry of Commerce. Yes, yes they already knew what it was about then.
OPEN BORDERS
If there is agreement that it is a universal right, then the Netherlands must also open its doors wide to adoptions to other countries from and for less fortunate children in the Netherlands, for example children who cannot find foster care, live below the poverty line, children of single parents, children who do not have health insurance, children of refugees, children who have been expelled from parental authority or children of parents who are in conflict, children who receive a better education elsewhere or opportunities that they would otherwise not get in the Netherlands.
This does mean that we have to accept adoption agencies from the US, Canada, Australia and other European countries, as well as from China, Saudi Arabia, India and Russia and all other countries where the economy is picking up. They should alle be entitled to the supply of children in the Netherlands.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS
Why not a transatlantic adoption trade deal on this topic. It has already been categorized as a Child Industrial Complex in social science (Cheney et al). Actually, we are not playing the game completely fair now. We do have access to, especially non-Western countries, but not the other way around.
If we really believe that the current pro-adoption arguments are universally legitimate, then we should also be able to apply them to a reciprocal exchange of children with other countries. What we call the in-and-out situation in the adoption jargon as with the USA.
The consequence is that the Hague Adoption Convention must be dropped, not that the Netherlands cares about it at all, even though the permanent office is in the Netherlands, it already ignores the subsidiarity principle (take care of your own children first before you may adopt in and out) . A so-called equal level playing field must then be created. Free play and free choice of children for everyone.
CHINESE PROSPECTIVE PARENTS IN THE NETHERLANDS
I can already picture it, hordes of childless Chinese couples and singles who go to disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague to select children. Or the smartest go into the provinces, looking for young unmarried mothers without family support. These are then entered in a database so that other prospective adoptive parents in China can also choose from the online catalog on age, gender, colour, health, background, DNA value and cost-benefit (starting with €25,000) analysis. Something that is now permitted in non-Western countries.
SILVER AND GOLD MEMBERSHIPS
And there will be a preferred supplier list for the countries that pay the most and have the most political interests. They may choose first! Or what about Islamic countries that use oil money to buy up children to win souls in the bible belt regions. At least the same number of children who have adopted in these regions should then be available on the Netherlands side for Muslim regions. There are several thousand. It seems like a great idea for a solid negotiating basis for peace and trade with Islamic superpowers. The evidence for such trade-offs is already there.
POLITICS AND BUSINESS AS USUAL
What about the adoption of children for political / business services like the former Federal Chancellor Schröder (then 60) who more or less received a child from Putin in 2004. As a token of thanks, a business delegation came to get to know Russia. This entire adoption affair was downplayed and concealed by the German government, but in the meantime German and Russian secret services were ordered to keep the ‘transmission of no 4’ in the right direction.
WHAT DEFENCE IS NOT GOOD FOR
And what about Belgian MPs who used Belgian military aircraft to hold private adoptions behind the scenes or to cooperate in large-scale ‘evacuations’ of so-called defenceless children from Congo. How do we know this again? Oh, the Babylift operations in Vietnam by USA’s airforce.
In other words, there is good business to be done with and for children, certainly internationally.
A condition is that there cannot be a covert first choice for well-to-do Netherland’s middle class to adopt domestically. After all, the Dutch children’s group will then suddenly become part of the international children’s market (M. Riben).
EQUAL WISHES EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
What do you think of the above proposal?
Netherland’s prospective adoptive parents are given free rein and are allowed to choose what they want (they are just like animals that children, as adoptive mother Karen Gregory describes in her words in the newspaper Trouw) but other non-Western aspiring adoptive parents can also pick and deliver in the same way as is done in the Netherlands. Sounds like a great plan considering that it will offer equal opportunities for everyone.
Oh yeah. Perhaps an opportunity for companies such as Thuisbezorgd and Deliveroo to tap into a new and international market? The profit margin is enormous. In the peak times, an average of $ 2.5 billion a year was spent in international adoption.
If this open market is there, it is only a matter of time that an American movie star or celebrity files a lawsuit against the Netherlands for not getting what she ordered …
And there is a good chance that foreign multi-millionaires will come up with certain subsidies on projects so that they can buy and buy off the preferred supply for years. All seems like a good plan now that the Dutch economy can use a boost in this COVID time.
FALLING MARKET VALUE
Unfortunately, the above plan does not actually have any impact in the long run. It is being taken over by a new market. Namely that of commercial surrogacy and designer babies that you can put together yourself with the DNA material as you wish. Who then wants a second-hand child?
NEW TREATIES WITH THE SAME LOOPHOLES
But as it now seems, that market has discovered the loopholes of international adoption and wants a similar treaty as the Hague Adoption Convention. We already discussed this internationally in 2016. The smart ones among the lawyers, many white young women who say they care about other women in the world (or what matters to them, the control of surrogate mothers for a healthy gestation period) saw their chance. Solidarity with other women suddenly ceases when it comes to children. Then the ‘animal instincts’ are released, to use Gregory’s words again.
After all, it seems to be all ethically regulated on paper, but everything underhanded is possible because as soon as there is a treaty, nobody can and does not need to check each other anymore, and everything is possible. Long live international treaty laws.
SCHIZOPHRENE CONSUMERS
In the meantime, more than 9,000 signatures have been collected to lift the temporary stop on international adoption in the Netherlands. However, this petition group does not want to delve into the backgrounds of the subject that they are committed to as consumers. Perhaps Benjamin Barber is right in his book, The Infantile Consumer.
He introduces what he calls the ‘infantilist ethos’: the capitalist ideology that reduces responsible citizens to docile consumers and replaces the public good with private property. Barber shows how adult consumers infantilise in a global economy that generates massive overproduction of goods and focuses primarily on the child as a consumer. He keenly analyses the consequences of this development for our children, our freedom, citizenship and democracy.con
HEDONISM 2021
A long time ago, when I read Aldous Huxley’s book, ‘A Brave New World’, I had the creeps that this could be true. And lo and behold, it is already here. If this is correct, then Hannah Arendt’s theorem is also true. Even worse, history has already shown it. The human monster turns out to have an ordinary face of a ‘normal man or woman’ that is not served by a No. It seeks immediate satisfaction of individual needs and enjoyment. Possibly at the expense of others. This is called hedonism.
END OF FEMINISM 3.0
Feminism also appears to stop at the borders of the western world, and women of colour appear to remain anxiously silent on this subject. After all, they want everything that the dominant white women also have: freedom, beauty, power, prestige and also children of another, if it is convenient. Even if it costs an existential loss for those directly involved; parents and children.
THE HOLLYWOOD SAGA
In the meantime, Hollywood and Walt Disney take the subject of orphan and adoption as a present and no longer questions the suffering of Dombo, Bambi, Superman and many other examples. After all, people mainly remember the happy ending of Annie (The Musical), for example, but not what preceded it. After all, the consumer wants the end product but not the responsibility of the process in advance.
ADOPTION PORN
Since then, something like #adoptionporn seems to exist. Hordes of Dutch people sit in front of the TV every week with tissues ready to do themselves well with the program ‘as Spoorloos ed. indirectly permits this way. The price? National exposure of suffering.
FINALLY
But who actually pays for that suffering? Usually not the consumers. They are just end users.
I end with a quote from Dr. Jordan Peterson.
„Deine Rechte werden zu meiner Verantwortung.“
Mit anderen Worten, Ihr Recht wird zu meiner Verantwortung. Was Sie als Recht beanspruchen, muss dann von anderen bereitgestellt und geschützt werden. Die Frage ist und bleibt, zu welchem Preis?
